WATCH: Cocoa Beach High School Holds Graduation Ceremony for Class of 2020

By  //  July 18, 2020

Ceremony starts at 9:00 a.m.

ABOVE VIDEO: Cocoa Beach High School Holds Graduation Ceremony for Class of 2020

BREVARD COUNTY • COCOA BEACH, FLORIDA – Cocoa Beach Junior-Senior High School has always had a unique Graduation Ceremony. We conduct our ceremony in our own courtyard.

The ceremony is intimate, as we usually have a small graduating class of less than 200 Seniors. Due to the current restrictions on large group gatherings, we must alter our traditional ceremony.

The centerpiece of the ceremony is the “crossing of the bridge.” Our mascot is the Minutemen, and we have a small bridge in our courtyard to represent the Concord Bridge that is part of the Minutemen and Revolutionary War folklore.

Each Senior engages in the act of “crossing the bridge” during the ceremony, signifying their transition from adolescence to adulthood. We typically have speeches from class leaders and platform guests, but the act of “crossing the bridge” is the single most important part of our ceremony.

It is the thing that makes the Cocoa Beach ceremony unique. For the Class of 2020, we will conduct individual, family ceremonies in a rolling format over an extended period of time.

Here is the plan.

– Each graduate and their family will participate in the ceremony, as an individual group separate from other groups.
– The formal ceremony will begin at 9:00 am, but the first graduate will cross the bridge at 9:30 am. Each graduate and their family will participate as the day progresses.
– The ceremony will end when the last graduate walks across the bridge (much later).
– The graduates and their families will participate in the ceremony on an appointment basis, again beginning at 9:30 am.
– Each graduate and their family will be able to choose their own individual appointment time slot to “cross the bridge.”
– Thirty minutes prior to their appointment time, the graduate and their family will enter the courtyard from the Building #6 entrance and then be staged in the courtyard.
– The graduate will be announced and head toward the base of the Bridge.
– The family will move to the center of the courtyard in order to get an up close and camera friendly picture of their graduate crossing the bridge.
– The graduate will then take part in the crossing ceremony (which includes a commemorative coin toss into the pool before crossing the bridge).
– After crossing the Bridge the graduate and their family would exit the courtyard to the East, and exit campus through the Building #3 exterior doors.
– The next graduate and their family would enter the courtyard and the process would repeat.
– Each graduate and family group cannot exceed 10 persons
– Each graduate and family group will remain at least 6 feet apart from other family groups when entering and exiting the courtyard.
– The ceremony will be broadcast live on YouTube.
– The speeches and other platform activities will be pre-recorded and attached to the video broadcast of the ceremony and will air from 9:00 am – 9:30 am.
– The School Resource Officer and other school personnel will be assigned to monitor the perimeter of the courtyard to ensure that families maintain social distancing.
– The order of participation will not be alphabetical. Families will sign up for individual time slots – so it is on a first come – first served basis.
– On July 10th, we will release a link to an electronic sign-up sheet so that families can reserve the specific time slot they would like to participate in the ceremony.
– The first time slot will be at 9:30 am. We estimate that the last time slot, depending on how many families participate, will be in the early afternoon, approximately 5:00 pm.
– Families should coordinate the time slot they select so that friends or relatives will be participating in succession.

This is a continuous, individual-family, ceremony; similar to an assembly line. As one family enters the courtyard and the graduate crosses the bridge, they exit and the next family participates.

We believe that this alternate plan enables us to provide the most unique and important part of our ceremony for each and every graduate and their family to experience. It also limits the amount of people that will be on campus at one time.

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