BREAKING: Louisiana to enter Phase 2 of Reopening on Friday
June 1, 2020
Tropical Depression Three Forms; Where he will go, no one knows!
June 1, 2020
The Terrebonne Parish School District has officially set tentative dates for in-person graduation ceremonies at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center for all four local public schools.
As of now, the dates for each ceremony are as follows:
- Ellender Memorial High School on July 6
- H. L. Bourgeois High School on July 7
- South Terrebonne High School on July 8
- Terrebonne High School on July 9
“[In] early May, the Diocese had put out that they had some tentative dates, so we called the Civic Center, and working with the Civic Center staff, we were able to get a tentative week of July 6 through the 10,” Mark Torbert, supervisor of secondary education for the TPSD, said.
Torbert stressed the fact that the dates are tentative and that ceremonies are subject to change based on state guidelines from Governor John Bel Edwards.
The TPSD does not have plans yet as to how many tickets each graduate will be allotted, as the exact setups of the ceremonies are again subject to state guidelines. In conjunction with the Civic Center staff, though, Torbert said they hope to have numbers “as soon as possible.”
This afternoon, Edwards announced that Louisiana is set to move into Phase 2 of the reopening plan on Friday, which will ultimately loosen more restrictions statewide.
“Especially now that it’s anticipated that the governor, by his words, he’s looking to sign the proclamation possibly later this week to go into Phase 2, so how that’s going to look, again it’s all subject to change as well, but just going off of his news conference this afternoon, it looks like it’s hopefully moving forward,” Torbert said.
Torbert said the decision to move forward with in-person ceremonies came from graduates themselves.
“We polled the seniors asking if they wanted a traditional ceremony or if they wanted to try to do something in the stadiums, and the seniors overwhelmingly, about 80 percent to 20 percent, wanted a traditional ceremony,” Torbert said. “We’re trying to give them what they had indicated to us that they’d prefer so that hopefully we can hopefully meet their wishes and honor them the way they’re entitled to.”
In the event that changes to the tentative dates must be made, Torbert said the TPSD and the Civic Center staff will look at additional dates and adjust accordingly.
“Right now now we’re hoping and keeping our fingers crossed that we can do it in July because obviously the students are moving on with…their college careers, as well as occupations and that kind of thing. We don’t want it to linger any longer than it has to,” Torbert said.
