Local governments make high school graduation recommendations
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News from Lake County / CSKT Unified Command Center
Lake County and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ Unified Command Center, a joint task force to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, sent a letter to local high school superintendents concerning graduation ceremonies.
The letter states: while Governor Steve Bullock has eased restrictions in Montana and allowed school boards to decide if they want to reopen schools and conduct graduations, serious caution should be taken when considering high school graduation ceremonies in the Mission Valley.
The UCC recommends you consider alternatives to public gatherings to avoid the numerous potential challenges. Under phase one of the governor's plan to re-open
Montana, graduation environments must meet the social distancing requirements, which includes avoiding gatherings of groups of more than 10 people. Also a factor to consider is the governor's directive for out-of-state travelers coming to Montana for non-work related reasons must quarantine for 14 days, which impacts out of state graduation attendees.
Live streaming is an option being considered by many colleges and universities.
Salish Kootenai College is preparing to use remote communications to live stream their graduation ceremony. Another consideration is waiting until June for a graduation celebration, which would allow another four weeks to evaluate our success at excluding this virus from our communities.
These are difficult times. We have sacrificed many freedoms to quarantine, isolate and socially distance ourselves so as not to provide avenues of virus transmission. These guidelines have impacted the spring school year and will likely impact graduation ceremonies. The adherence to these guidelines have slowed the spread of COVID-19, and our goal is to prevent any setbacks that cause spikes in infection rates and cause a need for starting over. Thank you for considering the safest options for our community.
