The drive-through service model is working well for restaurants and some other businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, so Mother of Sorrows School officials in Murrysville thought: why couldn’t it work just as well for kindergarten students making the transition to first grade?
The school, on Old William Penn Highway, will host a “Drive Thru Graduation” for kindergartners on May 28.
“Putting it off until the end of the summer just didn’t seem to make sense for this age group,” Principal Theresa Szmed said. “We were collaborating with our kindergarten teachers about how we could make it fun, saw the (social media posts) about parades happening throughout the area and immediately thought, ‘That’s what we should do.’”
School officials plan to line the road with double-sided signs that include each graduating kindergartner’s face on one side and a congratulatory message on the other.
“Each family is allowed one car, which we’ve asked them to decorate,” Szmed said. “We have them winding around the back of the school and coming around to where we do our car dismissals.”
Families will pull up with their vehicle trunks open to receive a packet from teachers with a collection of students’ crafts, schoolwork and a small gift.
“Then they pick up their yard signs and they drive off,” Szmed said, adding that school administrators are already preparing for a variety of scenarios when it comes to the start of the 2020-21 school year.
“We surveyed all our families, because we just don’t know what the fall is going to look like,” she said. “So we kept what was working for our families and we’ll adjust things that aren’t. I’m anxious to see the overall picture and what the needs of our parents are.”
One thing they don’t need to worry about is celebrating their child’s graduation from kindergarten.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Szmed said.
