West Ranch High School’s graduating class of 2020 was honored in a drive-through graduation ceremony at Central Park on Thursday morning.

William S. Hart School District officials, school faculty and parent volunteers came together to set the stage for the Wildcats as they step into the next chapter of life.

“I think maybe two, two and a half weeks ago, we didn’t know this would happen,” said West Ranch Principal Mark Crawford. “So to put everything together, to come together, for all of us, all of the schools to work together to make this happen, it’s a testament to what we have in the strength of our district and of our community.”

This year’s graduating class includes 534 Wildcat seniors, 204 of whom graduate with honors and all of who finished the year with an experience the senior classes that have come before them never have.

“I think that we want to look at the way that I think and what they’ve been through can make them the most resilient and possibly the greatest class to ever come out of West Ranch or our community for all of our schools,” Crawford said. “Because they’ve had to endure a lot, from the fires to the incident at Saugus High, to a world pandemic, they’ve been through a lot in their senior year but I think this is going to make them stronger.”

School officials moved the ceremony slightly earlier than originally planned to allow families more time to make it home in case any streets were impacted by protests on Thursday afternoon.

The event kicked off at 7:30 a.m. and ran until 11:30 a.m. as seniors crossed the stage to the cheers of their family as well as a number of faculty members that were in attendance for a final goodbye to their graduates.

In addition to the stage and flowers provided by the district, parents also chipped in to craft additional decorations that were set up on either side of the stage.

The parents actually came up with a lot of the decorations that came out yesterday to kind of help out and then with the help of the district with the flowers, the stage and the tent, I think it worked out great. 

“The wind got up a little bit towards the end and blew our decorations around a bit, but we were able to hold everything down as best we could,” Crawford said. “But again the students, the parents, we all worked together, and for everything that these seniors have been through, this was the least we could do.”

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