Roswell high school seniors urge community to follow COVID guidelines in hopes of ‘normal’ graduation

ROSWELL, N.M. —The Roswell Independent School District created a new campaign asking the community to stick to COVID guidelines so high school seniors can have as normal a graduation as possible. The hashtag “Do it for the class of 2021” was created to accompany the PSA campaign.

“Our hope is that we can have a normal graduation this year as normal as possible and so we’ve asked our seniors. We want our seniors to be the face representing all of our seniors to our community, so we’ve asked them to make that plea to our community," said Jennifer Cole, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

Students recently returned to the classroom earlier this month following months of virtual learning, which leaves just a few months for seniors to experience everything they’ve missed out on.

“Getting bumped into the hallway by cute guys in between classes,” one senior said in the video.

Last year, seniors had a pandemic-style drive-thru graduation parade.

The district hopes the video will make an impact, hopefully helping the community get to Level Turquoise.

Roswell Independent Schools Superintendent Michael Gottlieb said he hopes it hits home.

“We’re proud of the video that was made it’s very exciting last time I checked we had well over 10,000 hits, and it was shared multiple times, which we can’t always follow those completely, so we know it hit home and it really means a lot to the community,” he said.

Graduations are tentatively scheduled for June, and it’s not just the senior class the district is advocating for. They also have kindergarten and fifth grade graduations.

The superintendent said they’re hoping to make sure students get to celebrate this milestone in the best way possible.