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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Local high school find new graduation location

On May 30, 407 Bloomington High School South students and six members of their families will pack into the school’s gym for graduation. Normally, they could expect to be in Assembly Hall where their entire families could be present.

But for the next two years, Assembly Hall will be under construction and unavailable for the high schools to use for commencements.

Mark Land of IU Communications said this wasn’t a surprise for the schools.

“The schedule of construction has been common knowledge for a while,” Land said. Land said the renovations would be extensive.

“We’re adding escalators, suites, boxes,” Land said. “We’re getting a brand new scoreboard.”

This left the school corporations deliberating options for where they could fit ?everyone.

Maggie Hopkins, a senior at Bloomington South, said the administration decided on the school’s larger gym after considering the IU ?Auditorium.

“They told us the parking was better at our gym,” Hopkins said. She said the administration is giving families tickets for the family ?members they want to invite, and they are limited to six tickets per family.

“There’s going to be a live-stream of the ceremony going on in the auditorium for family who can’t be present in the gym,” Hopkins said.

Although Land said the news has been around for a while, graduating senior Allie Sipes said the class just learned of the location of graduation.

“We actually just found out a couple weeks ago,” Sipes said.

Sipes said the situation was difficult for some ?students.

“My parents are divorced, and I have two sets of ?grandparents I wanted to bring,” Sipes said.

Situations like hers are prompting other families to share their tickets.

“They are encouraging people with smaller families to share,” Hopkins said. “The only thing they don’t want us to do is sell them.”

Both seniors said they had seen other students frustrated with the decision.

“I was pretty disappointed,” Hopkins said. “It’s kind of strange to know you’re not graduating in Assembly Hall. It’s like a rite of passage.”

Sipes agreed that the situation was unfortunate.

“I’m just glad that we can bring six people,” Sipes said.

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