Graduating seniors are in limbo thanks to Covid-19

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – The class of 2020 is going through something right now that very few of us have.

They are missing out on the end of their long educational march through schools.

It many not have hit the adults yet just how devastating this is for them.

One counselor tells us they are going through grief right now.

Our David Moore looks at the unique position of 2020’s graduating class in this week’s episode of What’s Right with Our Schools.

Tyra Moore is a graduating senior at Central High.

TYRA: Each day I go and check my emails and check my notifications from Google classroom and canvas.

TYRA: Sometimes some of the teachers are hard to get in contact with. But some are easy. So you are trying to get into contact with your teachers and usually like in class if you need help with a problem you can ask them right then and there. But now you have to go through so many steps to try to get in contact with them. And by the time you do get contact with them, then it’s like I’ve already figured it out.

TYRA: You always think of high school as it’s going to be a big old thing and your graduation and prom and stuff like that. But now you don’t even know if you’re going to be able to do it or not.

TYRA: You don’t really know if you are going to have a graduation or not, because every day it changes. One day they say the graduation is this day and the next they are saying something else. It’s like you never know.

TYRA: We didn’t really expect that last day, would be the last day we saw each other.

Sheilia Smith is a counselor at LFO High School.

SHELIA: For seniors I think the first thing to acknowledge is that there is going to be grief. This is a tremendous loss. It is something they have look forward to for years. So they are going to experience grief. We have this situation. And it is unprecedented for everyone including the leaders, the people they look up to, their counselors, their teachers, their parents. It’s unprecedented. We have all experienced something we could have never imagined. From this experience you will be equipped with something that will help you as you go forward.

SHELIA: And this is a learning opportunity to help you grow and prepare and do what graduation is for anyway. And that is to send you into the world.