Some people say they have “skin in the game” when they are invested in something. With the Class of 2022, I had kin in the game.
My daughter, Caitlin Byrd, marches in cap and gown tonight at Independence Stadium in the 97th graduation class of The City of Byrd, aka C.E. Byrd High School. As an assistant principal at Byrd High, I will have a front row seat, but then again, I’ve had a front row seat watching this graduating class through every step of their education.
The Class of 2022 had a taste of normal before COVID-19 turned formal education upside down near the ides of March during their sophomore year.
Graduates, I guess I’ll start there — on Friday, March 13th of your sophomore year. Remember that day? I do. With one tweet from Gov. Jon Bel Edwards, you and your classmates went home, many for a spring break which extended into summer. I saw you get on buses and head home. I saw teachers scrambling around in an emergency faculty meeting trying to find out if they would be able to communicate with all of their students, or not. And then I walked across the street to Walgreens, thankful they still had some toilet paper on the shelves. Strange times, indeed.
And all of this just when many of you were getting your driver’s license! Bummer! In fact, at least one of you hurried to the Express DMV and obtained your vehicular freedom before the Louisiana Department of Transportation was closed due to the pandemic.
Most of you knew what Google Classroom was before that Friday the 13th, but most of you also had teachers who had no clue. They heroically had to learn on the run, and most you understood and helped them navigate – or Zoom – through those unchartered waters. COVID-19 definitely had its way with the education system in our state, and across the nation, and around the world.
When school started back in the fall of your junior year, it didn’t look like school at all. It looked -and felt – more like a prison. You had face masks. Your teachers had face masks or taught behind plexiglass. And many of you had to clean your desks, something that was usually the responsibility of the custodial staff. It was the first time I remember teachers complaining that they couldn’t get students to talk in class. Usually, it’s the other way around, trying to get you to be quiet.
And then there was the dreaded contact tracing. Many of you were quarantined, either because you tested positive for the virus or you sat beside someone who did.
Ask me how I know. (It suddenly fit my job description.)
Now, during this graduation season, some of you will sit and listen to graduation speakers tell you how to live the next part of your life. Some speakers will even talk to you about overcoming adversity.
They mean well, but, in all due respect, Adversity might as well be your middle name. It will be like telling Noah about the flood. You get it. You have lived it over these last four years.
I simply want to say, thank you! Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for pushing through. Thank you for wearing the masks, Thank you for standing six feet behind your friends in lunch line, and Thank you for doing all of the hundreds of things which were asked of you during these (I cannot stand these words) unprecedented times.
I’m going to take a page out of Green Day’s playbook, but switch it up just a bit. I hope you have the time of your lives. Not have had, but have.
I know that your high school experience was anything but normal, but as you have learned over these years, there is a reason God gave you eyes in the front of your head. It’s time to move on to the next chapter, whatever that looks like. Whether you go to college, begin a career, or take a gap year to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, I hope it is nothing short of amazing. You definitely deserve it. There are so many who are proud not only of what you have accomplished, but – more importantly – the person you have become. I am in that number.
Apologies to Carly Simon (ask your parents…or grandparents), but, as far as I’m concerned, Class of 2022…Nobody Did It Better!