Written by Nicole Castro
Because of this devastating pandemic sweeping through countries across the globe, schools are closed for the remainder of the school year. Inevitably, this has contributed to the cancellation of yearly school events including senior festivities such as prom, Grad bash, and most importantly, graduation.
MDCPS has concluded that a virtual, prerecorded graduation is the best way to go about things. This decision is not ideal but it's the best that can be done given the circumstances. Since we aren't the most typical high school, MAST@FIU's prom is one of the most important events for seniors. Prom is a time where we all come together and celebrate our accomplishments throughout our high school career. Seniors across the country have taken it upon themselves to make the best out of this situation. Proms have been hosted both virtually and at home.
This new approach to senior activities, such as the at-home prom, is creative and seniors in our class have taken advantage of it. Yezenia Ruiz and Blaize La Rocca-Mitchell did not let COVID-19 take away all the memories that come with senior year. “After much thought about Yezenia not getting the year she deserved, I decided I can put a little something together so that we can celebrate the way we should’ve.”
The plan was for Blaize to order supplies online, dinner, and decorate his living room so the at-home prom could be at realistic as possible. He then asked Yezenia to go to the prom he was hosting for her. “I was very surprised and thought it was a super cute idea and I knew it would be memorable. When the day came, he picked me up and it seemed like it was a real prom, the dinner was set up with music playing and lights and decorations everywhere.” This is an innovative alternative to the standard proms that we can’t have any more due to the current pandemic.
The effort shown by our seniors here proves that we can do our best to enjoy these last few weeks we have as high school students. We should take advantage of the free time we have during quarantine to come up with ideas to celebrate each other, safely of course. Just the other day there was a parade to honor the graduating class of 2020 around country club drive. Streets were closed down to keep people safe. The community came together at Aventura circle cheering and holding banners and balloons for the class of 2020. Our very own seniors, Scott Pollowitz and Melanie Moreno attended this event. Just because we’re under quarantine, doesn’t mean we can’t have memorable events such as this so we can kiss our high school lives goodbye.