Watchung Hills High Graduation Set for a Monday Morning Next June

The Watchung Hills Regional Board of Education has set a tentative graduation date for the Class of 2014 for 10 a.m. on Monday, June 23 to allow the outdoor ceremony to be delayed throughout the day if necessary.

Even if it is raining, the graduation will be held outdoors on the football field except in case of "monsoons" or some other severe weather event, Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Jewett said at Tuesday's regional school board meeting.

The move to a morning graduation was done so if the weather is bad the weather can be postponed until later in the day, said board member Lisa DeMizio.

In case of high heat, a morning graduation also takes advantage of cooler morning weather, Jewett pointed out.

However, the ceremony would be moved into the performing arts center at 6 p.m. if absolutely necessary due to weather, she said.

School officials were trying to avoid a repeat the arrangement in which parents fill the school's performing arts center, where the graduates-to-be wouldn't fit in at the same time. The graduates must line up elsewhere and can come into the arts center when called in, Jewett said.

Board member Laura Mandell alone objected, saying she believes that parents who work or have other activities during the day could find it difficult to make a morning ceremony.

Jewett said the school district had planned early in able to give parents nine months in advance to plan to take the day off, if necessary, to attend graduation.