Valley Christian Seniors and Parents,

We truly appreciate your patience as we have worked to develop plans for our graduation ceremony during these unprecedented times. Our highest priority remains the health and safety of our students and community. We understand this has been a difficult time for everyone, but we are doing everything we can to honor our seniors with the celebration they deserve while still adhering to state and federal guidelines. This effort includes working closely with state officials in the development of our plans.

We are excited to offer our seniors and families two ways to celebrate this incredible accomplishment and all their hard work. We will be hosting a drive-in graduation ceremony on Friday, May 22 and are also making plans to host a more traditional ceremony in June.

We cannot wait to welcome our seniors back to our campus for our drive-in graduation ceremony at Benson Field on Friday, May 22. We have strongly desired to have an event around our traditional graduation date in May for our seniors. This ceremony will allow our seniors to come back onto our campus while also being able to walk across a stage and be presented with their diploma in front of their classmates. We have worked hard to make this a very fun and festive event and are very excited to honor our seniors!

Our graduates, and as many family members that can legally fit in one vehicle, will enter the track at Benson Field beginning at 6:15pm. Upon entering Benson Field, we’ll be providing a drive-in snack pack for each vehicle and families are encouraged to decorate their vehicles. Once everyone is on the track, we will begin our ceremony. Our graduates will begin to proceed around the track in their vehicles to the stage where they will be announced, presented with their diploma by Mr. Kuiper, and have their photo professionally taken in their cap and gown. The graduate will then re-enter their vehicle either continue around the track to watch their classmates receive their diploma or exit Benson Field. We cannot wait to honor our graduates that night and celebrate together as a community back on our campus!

The tentative date for a more traditional graduation ceremony is Wednesday, June 24. In addition to honoring our seniors with an event around their anticipated graduation date, we also believe it is important to celebrate our community through a more intimate, traditional ceremony. We understand that not everyone will feel comfortable participating or may already have summer plans that prevent them from attending. This ceremony will be dependent on our ability to utilize a facility for a large group. This ceremony will also feature our graduates walking across the stage, in addition to valedictory, salutatory, and commencement addresses, and senior award presentations. More details surrounding this event will be released as we get closer to that date.

Both events will be streamed live at valleychristianaz.org/graduation for those family members and friends who cannot attend.

Again, we thank you for your patience and understanding during these difficult times. We cannot wait to celebrate our Class of 2020 and look forward to being able to do so during these two graduation events!