NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa. (RVO) – The Redbank Valley School District in New Bethlehem PA has released their plans for the High School Class of 2020 Graduation. High School Principal Mrs. Amy Rupp published the following press release to the district’s website.

Hello Redbank Valley Family!

We are excited to announce our final plans for our graduation.

Redbank Valley High School will host its commencement exercises on June 2nd at 6:30 PM** at the Redbank Valley Park. Due to the global pandemic, this year’s graduation ceremony will be a drive-in ceremony. We wanted to create an experience that complies with the current COVID-19 restrictions and provides a meaningful ceremony to celebrate our seniors. This ceremony will have all the elements of a normal graduation. Here are the details:

Every senior will be given ticket for two cars. They will be in one car with family members, and another ticket will be for one extra car for family only. The seniors will be staged in their family car in a designated area near the stage. Families are encouraged to decorate their cars with positive and inspirational messages and/or school spirit. The additional guests (with tickets) will be directed to parking behind the graduates with visual and audio access. The ceremony will be live streamed so that folks not in attendance will be able to watch from home.

The ceremony will mirror a traditional ceremony. There will be a public address system as well as a radio station to be able to transmit the audio to all vehicles. We will have speeches by our, principal, guest speaker, valedictorian, and salutatorian. At the conclusion of our speeches, students will be recognized one at a time to walk across the stage where they will receive their diploma (following all social distancing guidelines.) Pictures will be taken on the stage, and students will return to their vehicles. After students receive their diploma they will exit the park where a police /fire escort with lead them out of the park.

Photos and streaming: Photos will be taken as students walk across the stage. We plan to live stream the ceremony so that everyone can watch from their cars no matter where they are parked. We also plan to have the audio broadcasted for those who want to turn it on their car radio if they do not have a device to stream, or if they are not able to hear the PA system.

We are encouraging our community to creatively support our seniors all over the county. We would love to see signs of support and congratulations for the class of 2020 on business signs, billboards, churches, and front yards. We want our seniors to see that our community loves and supports them, and we hope that they see signs of that everywhere they look as they drive to graduation!

The decision not to delay commencement until the summer was not made lightly. The possibility of having a traditional graduation is highly unlikely and we wanted to make sure that our Seniors had a memorable experience to celebrate their academic careers, their hard work, and their dedication to Redbank Valley High School. We believe that with the support of our community and the positivity of our parents, these students will enjoy an experience that no other graduating class from Redbank Valley High School has.

Safety has also been at the forefront of all of our decisions, which is why we have decided to have graduation this way. We decided to host this at Redbank Valley Park to enable to the students to graduate in their community. We are working as hard as we can to create the most memorable experience for our Seniors because they deserve nothing less than excellence.

To the graduating class of 2020, you are loved and appreciated by all of the educators that helped you get to this point. You have earned a chance to be celebrated and to have your moment on the stage. We all know that you will go do great things in our society and that the world will be a better place because of the class of 2020!

**Rain date will be June 3rd at 6:30 PM

Thank you for your support of Redbank Valley and the Class of 2020!

Sincerely,
Amy Rupp, HS Principal

SOURCE: http://www.redbankvalley.net/index.php/district/district-news/100-rvhs-graduation-information-released.html

ABOUT:
Redbank Valley School District provides education services for the 165 square mile area of New Bethlehem and Hawthorn boroughs, and the townships of Mahoning, Madison, Porter, and Redbank of both Clarion and Armstrong counties.

MEETINGS:
The Redbank Valley School Board meetings the first Monday of every month at 7pm at the High School Library.

CONTACT:
For more information about the Redbank Valley School District, please call 814.275.2426 or visit RedbankValley.org/pg/biz/redbank-valley-school-district