On June 16th, at about 10 p.m. North Creek High School will be full of bustling, just graduated students looking for one last night of high school memories. The pandemic’s effect on senior graduation and events has left everyone scratching their heads wondering what the last month of high school is going to be like. For $155.25, students are eligible to participate in an assortment of activities and games that span six and a half hours. This includes secret venues, food and games of all sorts.
“There will be physical, mental, and silly activities. Fast, slow entertaining activities. Quiet and loud activities. There will be something for everyone!” The NCHS PTSA details on the Grad Night form. Students and chaperones are expected to wear masks throughout the seven hours of Grad Night and sign Covid-19 safety forms to ensure the safety of all the students and staff attending.
For some students the feeling of already detaching from high school or “checking out” has made them unsure if this is an event they would like to attend. “There were mixed feelings about it. Some people said they are interested right away, others were iffy about it,” said Senior Brock Whittaker. And Senior Eddie Castillo would agree. “They think it’s either not worth going to, or a fun idea,” said Castillo. As tradition, Grad Night locations are to remain secret until the night of the event. Riding on buses, each with 44 seniors for distancing regulations, to these unspecified venues.
This is a newer practice for North Creek, as it is a fairly young school. “All the high schools in Northshore do this and it is totally normal that the details are kept secret,” said Nadia Bosch, activities coordinator. “We haven’t had a chance to establish this as a strong tradition having only two in-person graduations and the event being canceled last year,” said Bosch.
To seniors, this is the last NCHS event they will be attending as a student. This is the final goodbye to the last 4 years of education. To Whittaker, he sees this as the final event to wrap up 4 years of memories given at North Creek. “Yes it’s sad that there isn’t going to be anything else other than graduation, but I still think that there were some fun events and opportunities that we had,” said Whittaker.
