Graduation ceremony plans for the Blanco High School Class of 2020 are still up in the air.

Clay Rosenbaum, Blanco ISD superintendent, told board members at Monday’s meeting that the district is weighing several options. The meeting was held through Zoom, and members of the public could view it live through the district’s YouTube channel.

“We were hoping we’d be able to have a normal graduation, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to do that,” Rosenbaum said. Graduation is currently scheduled for May 29.

Three options Blanco ISD is considering include postponing the graduation ceremony, having a virtual ceremony and staggering in students and there families over a certain time to award diplomas.

Rosenbaum said he has asked BHS seniors for their preference, which has been mixed.

“Several mentioned how they would like to postpone it. I don’t know how long we could postpone it, when we’d be able to have most of our students there,” he said.

Whatever route is chosen, the superintendent said they want to make sure this year’s valedictorian and salutatorian are able to give their addresses in some format.

One idea brought to the table during the board meeting, if postponement is the option, is to have set graduation ceremony dates for each month through the summer. The board would set dates in advance to hold a possible ceremony in June, July or August, and those dates would be known in advance to the public. For instance, if graduation cannot be held May 29, then it will automatically be moved to the pre-determined June date. If it is unable to be held in June, it will move to the predetermined July date.

Rosenbaum said he’s talking to several area superintendents Wednesday during an online meeting, with graduation as the topic.

“We are open to ideas,” he said. “We’re still a week or two away, probably, of needing to get something solid in place.“

The board unanimously approved waivers that allow the district to not continue with three locally adopted district policies during the current situation. The waivers deal with procedures for: graduation honors and class rank; grading; and promotion and retention.

Rosenbaum told board members that continuing as is wasn’t an option, since the policies call for things that couldn’t be completed at this time.

“We can’t abide by them right now in the current situation,” he said.

Local policy EIC deals with graduation honors and class rank. The policy calls for class rank to be established after the fifth six-weeks period is completed. Since school was closed to in-person instruction just after the fifth six-weeks period began, it would be impossible to use those numbers, Rosenbaum said. The waiver allows the school to set the class rank using data accumulated through the fourth six-weeks period.

Keitha St. Clair, BHS principal, told board members the changes will not affect those who are in the top two of the senior class or the top 10.

“I don’t think it’s going to impact it at all, and if it does, it wouldn’t necessarily bump a kid out of the top 10,” she said. “There could be a hundredths of a point difference or something that might make number seven, number eight, or something like that.”

Local EIA policy deals with grading. The waiver allows a temporary suspension of the policy to allow grades to be taken in a different way. For the high school and middle school, fourth and fifth six-weeks grades will be used as grades for the second semester. Since elementary students just ended their third nine-weeks period prior to spring break, the grading period will end there.

One thing that won’t happen, Rosenbaum said, is allowing the alternate instruction to impact students’ grades negatively.

“We’re not allowing this time of at-home learning to hurt their grades,” he said.

EIE policy lays out how students are passed or retained.

“We’re going to have to...sit down and start talking about those students that are either going to be promoted or maybe students that are retained,” Rosenbaum said. “We can’t use the same methods that we’ve used before. We’re going to have to sit down and come up with ways to be able to make sure that we’re looking at their grades appropriately, based on whether or not they have done their work.”

The board also voted unanimously to give all district employees a $200 payment to help with costs incurred due to in-home instruction or other non-standard duties. With 158 district employees, the total cost will be $31,600.

Rosenbaum also stated the district’s leadership team will meet this week to discuss how to close out the school year. This includes how teachers will be allowed to shut down their classrooms and how students will be able to retrieve items from school buildings.