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Mostly Cloudy W.T. Clarke grads parade through Salisbury
W.T. Clarke High School seniors weren’t going to let school closures stop them from having a socially distant celebration in honor of their college or technical school commitments.
Students decorated their cars with posters, balloons and streamers to denote the college they will be attending this fall. Then, the Class of 2020 reunited in the parking lot of the Leon J. Campo Salisbury Center on June 13 before the Rams roared through the community and ending the parade in the parking lot of their high school.
Officials from the Nassau County Police Department and East Meadow Fire Department escorted the students through the parade route as teachers, parents and neighbors watched from their lawns and honked to show their pride and support.
The parade honored students college decisions in a way that stuck to safety guidelines to stop the spread of Covid-19. As schools remain closed, it was one of many traditions that staff, students and parents re-created in a virtual or socially distant setting.
One of the organizers of the parade was Lulette Infante, of Salisbury, and hosting was Gabby Sferrazza, the president of the class of 2020, with Class Advisor Holly Judge and Yearbook Advisor Alexa Salzman.
Meanwhile, the East Meadow School District is still deliberating whether it will hold in-person graduations at W.T. Clarke and East Meadow high schools.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday that outdoor, socially distant graduations of up to 150 people would be permitted beginning June 26, as long as there aren’t any significant upticks in Covid-19 case numbers or deaths in the interim.
Patrick Pizzo, the East Meadow district’s assistant superintendent of business and finance, said last week that there are a lot of “moving parts” that the district must consider. “Everything’s under review right now,” Pizzo said, adding that school officials must parse any legal conditions of Cuomo’s order before taking advantage of it. “We need to make sure [we’re] interpreting it correctly,” he said.
