Joliet west is having 2 graduation ceremonies, is this necessary or is Joliet West stuck in the past?

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021Joliet West hosted 5 ceremonies over 2 days so we could manage all the social distancing guidelines. Joliet West received a lot of compliments regarding the smaller ceremonies.

This year the school planned to have a traditional school ceremony for Friday May 27th but according to Joliet West principal Dr. Gibson “Prior to the mask mandate being lifted we decided to host two ceremonies. This will allow us to have two groups of students. By hosting two ceremonies students will be able to invite 5 guests rather than 4.”

There are more things going on behind the scenes than we see. She also stated “We support any student or family who wants to wear a mask during the ceremony as a safety measure.” This is showing the school is supporting and giving respect to any person at the ceremonies.

Joliet West uses a lot of time and money to prepare for events like this. According to Dr. Gibson “There is a ton of time and effort put into our graduation ceremony efforts. We start working on plans before Winter Break.’’ With this information we can understand how much thinking and time is put into events such as the graduation ceremonies.

Dr. Gibson continued with “It’s hard to define the exact cost of the graduation ceremonies. We split some costs with Troy Middle School for rental of chairs as they also have their ceremony at Joliet West. The big cost is the staff we need to be on site for the ceremony.“ Even though you may not always understand why certain things happen there is much thought put into events like this.

Dr. Gibson shows a lot of excitement towards the graduation ceremonies and how much work she put in it will showcase that on Friday May 27th, when the graduation ceremony takes place at Joliet West.