By Jordan Bickham
Staff Writer

Senior year includes numerous of activities that pump up the seniors for the wrapping up of their high school career and the transition into college.  The event that completes that transition is the graduation ceremony that is scheduled for Thursday, May 31 at the University of North Texas.

While the students change every year, the graduation ceremony stays basically the same save for a few minor improvements. Next year’s date is already set at the same location.

Because there are dozens of larger school districts close by, UNT makes sure everyone gets a slot for their own ceremony, even if they do not have a say in the time they get.

“North Texas controls all that,” assistant principal Sean Bagley said.  “Say you had Lewisville school district come in, they have five high schools.  They pretty much get first choice, or if Plano, because they have five or six high schools.  So the bigger school districts get first choice on dates and times and then all the single high schools work around those other ones because they are big contracts and big groups of people.” 

Although Coppell ISD must work around the larger districts, it still has a small say in when the date is, especially when that date does not work out with the school year schedule.

“This year, it was either graduate on the Thursday, the 31^st, or six or eight days after school was already out,” Bagley said.  “That would have been terrible.  We actually did that one time, three or four years ago, and you have a lot of kids going to summer school or they have to go off to their college and check in.”

In addition to the date of the ceremony being a small improvement of years past, the ceremony itself has undergone a few changes in order to make things run more smoothly.  With approximately 607 students graduating, the ceremony is bound to be lengthy, which is why the district tries to do anything they can to make it go by faster.

“The big thing is that we try to solve some of the problems as we go through,” Bagley said.  “One of the problems was that we used to take pictures after they walked off the stage, they would go behind the stage and take a picture with their diploma and that backed up.  So, what we do now is pictures before, they even go in to three or four rooms we have set up as they come into the building.”

Not only do the administration work hard beforehand to make the ceremony go by even faster, but the students also have to do their part to make graduation fly by quickly.

“The graduates have to be there two hours ahead of time and they can only bring car keys,” principal’s secretary Terry Phillips said.  “There is even a security check they have to pass through and that is to make sure we do not have any disruptions such as beach balls.”

Other than the occasional surprises students bring, after participating in 12 graduation ceremonies at the high school, Phillips has noticed the ceremonies have not changed much over the years.  The same simple decorations and presentation stay the same and, just minor adjustments to move the ceremony along are different.  But even with these alterations, some seniors still dread the lengthy ceremony.

“I have been to quite a few [graduation ceremonies] because I have played in the graduation band,” senior Sarah Pye said.  “So, they are really long and boring, but I think it will mean a lot more to me whenever I am sitting in the seats waiting for my turn to walk across the stage.”

Graduation is the beginning of the transition into college and adult life.  The ceremony is when reality finally hits, when the thoughts finally begin about leaving high school life behind and moving on to college, away from friends and family.

“To me, it [graduation] means the end of my high school career and the beginning of a new chapter in my life,” Pye said.  “I am really excited to move on to bigger and better things in my life, but at the same time, it makes me sad because I am not ready to leave.”

Although the graduation ceremony may be more of a special event for parents than students, the ceremony represents a huge transition from high school and everything we know to a new school, new friends and a whole new life.