EDUCATION

Cranston East seniors offer perspective about the end of their school year

By PAM SCHIFF
Posted 6/3/20

By PAM SCHIFF Traditionally, for most high school seniors, the school year is largely over after April vacation. College acceptances are in, final projects are being worked and final exam schedules are in place. However, as the world knows, 2020 has

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EDUCATION

Cranston East seniors offer perspective about the end of their school year

Posted

Traditionally, for most high school seniors, the school year is largely over after April vacation. College acceptances are in, final projects are being worked and final exam schedules are in place.

However, as the world knows, 2020 has turned out to be anything but traditional. Due to the pandemic, school buildings have been closed since March, with students and educators moving to a distance learning approach. For seniors, the abrupt end of the in-person school year will mean missing out on proms, graduations, parties and yearbook signings, at least in their usual form.

Teachers, administration, parents and families have all weighed in on what the kids are missing, but now the kids actually get to voice their own feelings and issues with the situations at hand.

Domenic Fusco III is a member of quite a few extracurricular activities.

“My fifth season of the Thunderbolt Band & Emerald Encore ended last fall, but as of the time of school being closed, I was still a member of the CHSE Winter Percussion Ensemble for my fifth season, which was canceled halfway through the competitive season,” he said. “I have been treasurer of the class of 2020 for the past four years, a member of the Cranston East Chapter of Tri-M Music Honors Society for two years, with this year being the historian, a four-year member of the East Choir, a two-year member of the East Jazz Ensemble, and a two-year member of the Cranston East Chapter of the National Honors Society.” Fusco had no problem sharing his emotions about the early ending of his school career.

“School being canceled for the rest of the 2019-20 school year was extremely depressing to me. Being a senior, these last two months were always told to be the best point in high school, yet we had to leave halfway through March,” he said.

Some of the tings Fusco was expecting to participate in were no longer going to happen.

“New England Scholastic Bands Association canceled the rest of our Winter Percussion season, including East’s annual home show, which was scheduled only two days after the cancellation had occurred,” he said. “Then, following the extension of our distance learning plans, the Thunderbolt Band & Emerald Encore's trip to Walt Disney World in Florida, scheduled for the week of Easter, was also canceled. This was one thing we had all looked forward to, some of us for the past four years. Then came the full cancellation of the school year, which also canceled all end of the year events, as well as spring sports.”

All of the end-of-year academic events were also now canceled.

“Convocation, originally scheduled for May 14, and graduation, originally scheduled for June 6, are both being planned to take place virtually, but other events like the Senior Presentation, where seniors would show a portfolio of their work from the past years to a panel of teachers, the Senior Elementary Walk, where seniors would go in groups to their old elementary schools and walk through the halls with caps and gowns, the Senior Breakfast, taking place the morning of our graduation rehearsal, and worst of all, Senior Prom, were all canceled,” he said. “All these events we had worked for over four years were just taken from us. It truly feels horrible, knowing that I won’t get to go back and sit in those classrooms at East with my friends again. All those hard days where we just wished for the school year to end, looking back now it seemed like I wished my senior year away, always looking to the end, and then the end disappeared.”

Fusco is understanding about some of the cancellations, while other leave him trying to find alternative solutions.

“I know there’s no way for us to get back the Elementary School Walk and the Senior Breakfast. And the Academic Convocation has to happen virtually, due to awards and scholarships having to be handed out before the school year ends, but I do think there could be ways to hold prom and graduation, just not on schedule,” he said. “I know many other schools across the state have been looking to reschedule their proms until the winter or next spring/summer, and I have seen other substitutes for a traditional graduation, including a drive-in ceremony, where students and their family would drive into a lot to view the ceremony from their car, basically a drive-in movie, a drive through ceremony, where students and their family in their cars would form almost a parade traveling through the school grounds and saying one last goodbye to their teachers along the way, and other substitutions as well, such as a ceremony where each student would be able to walk the stage individually with only themselves and their family in the audience. The doors to PPAC for the class of 2020 are closed, and I believe all of us are just looking for a glimmer of hope to not have a virtual graduation and be able to celebrate our 13-year path through public schooling, many of us being a part of Cranston Public Schools for all 13 years.”

Fusco said he is proud of the community involvement of his class.

“I’m not bothered by people talking about the fact that it is over, because it unfortunately is the truth. There is no chance of us going back and finishing our school year in person,” he said. “I’m glad, however, that people are talking so much about our ‘Pay it Forward Challenge’ that we had started with the class of 2020, donating a lunch and dinner from Tropical Smoothie Cafe to workers at the Scandinavian Nursing Home a few weeks ago. It has seemingly caught on, as Westerly High School’s class of 2020 donated $600 of their prom fund to the Rhode Island Food Bank, Coventry High School’s class of 2020 donated Black Oak Kitchen & Drinks, located in Coventry, to workers at the Lifespan Gateway South Shore Center in Charlestown, and even the Cranston East class of 1980 made a donation of Uncle Tony's Pizza & Pasta Restaurant to the Cedar Crest Nursing Home in Cranston. I know many people may wonder why the class executives are making these decisions on their own, but I believe that this is the best thing we could do with the money that we have saved right now. We’re hoping for more Rhode Island seniors to keep this movement going as this pandemic comes to a drawn out close sometime in the near future.”

Megan Nota, another senior at East, offered her opinions and feelings on the subject as well.

“Not having a proper closure of the year is saddening, but nothing compared to not having a proper closure to the 12 years my classmates and I have been working to get to this exact moment,” she said. “I am very grateful for the recognition the local news, and even the world, has given my class for our loss with everything else going on.”

Nota played on the softball team the last couple of years and was greatly disappointed when schools closed just as the season and tryouts were starting.

“However, I among many others believe that our own school system is giving up and taking the easy way out of this. Prom has already been canceled and is completely out of the question as far as rescheduling for a later date, and there is no promise of a proper graduation in the future either,” she said. “It is extremely disappointing and feels as if no one is fighting for what we as a class so badly deserve, which is to walk across the stage at PPAC, receive our diploma in front of all of our family and friends, take pictures, and make one last memory before we depart and have to start thinking about the rest of our lives as adults. Our class deserves this just as much as the classes before us, and the ones to come after, and just because this tragic virus came about at the time where this was all meant to take place doesn’t mean we deserve it any less.”

Nota acknowledged that there will now be some sort of a graduation ceremony. However, it is nothing close to the pomp and circumstance that she would have liked for herself and classmates.

She plans on attending New England Tech to be a veterinarian technician. Fusco will be a music education/vocal student at Rhode Island College. 

education, schools, Cranston East

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