In early March, 18-year-old Encincal High School senior Jaden Warner Taylor was busy planning prom when the shelter orders came down, school was closed and the rug got pulled out from under him.
“Shock, denial, sadness,” says Taylor of the reaction from him and his classmates. “At first everyone was just like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ And then as the weeks went on and as quarantine went on a lot more people are getting sad and more sentimental because - I don’t know, we’re just missing out on something that’s been planning for the last two years.”
Taylor is the school’s student body treasurer, and as a member of the student leadership team he was supposed to be a graduation speaker.
“It’s supposed to be a culmination of growing together and becoming a community,” says Taylor. “And it feels like a lot of people are hurt, that they feel robbed of that. And it would have been really great to see each others faces and see where everyone is going to go after high school and celebrate that together in one place, on stage.”
But the city of Alameda does not want seniors to think they have been forgotten, which is why Friday is “Senior Sign Day” in the city. Signs are going up all over the city to mark graduation, each one with a name of one of the city’s roughly 700 high school seniors.
“We were supposed to have senior picnic, gone. And then we were supposed to have senior banquet, gone. And then June 5th was graduation and that’s been canceled too,” says Encinal High teacher Kevin Gorham. “So we’re trying to find small little ways to recognize our kids… this is a small way of getting the whole city involved.”
Some school districts across the country are throwing a virtual graduation. LeBron James and Oprah Winfrey are all hosting their own digital versions and actor John Krasinski is hosting one this weekend on his Some Good News show on YouTube.
But Taylor, who's headed to San Diego State to study international business, says not much can replace the experience of walking across a stage in a cap and gown, waving to your parents and hugging your friends.