This year's commencements for Midpeninsula high school students mark the first time in-person graduations have taken place since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. As the class of 2021 bids farewell, we've captured their final moments on campus through stories and photos.
Graduation ceremony coverage
• Gunn High School: Gunn graduates look back at a year of resilience and crucial life lessons
• Palo Alto High School: 'The beginning of reconnection': Paly seniors savor last moment together in person at graduation
Graduation profiles
• Overcoming the odds: Four local seniors discuss the challenges they've faced head on
Year-end celebrations for graduates
• On the eve of graduation, high school seniors celebrate with a car parade
• Parents band together to throw proms for Paly, Gunn seniors
List of local high school graduates
• Eastside College Preparatory School
• Palo Alto Preparatory School
Comments
Registered user
Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 3, 2021 at 3:57 pm
Registered user
on Jun 3, 2021 at 3:57 pm
I have a great deal of compassion and sympathy for the class of 2021. In many ways they have had a harder time of it than the class of 2020. Well done to all who have survived and put this in your life events folder to be brought out as one of the many times of celebrations in your past.
It is interesting that the class of 2020 never had the ceremony that they were promised this time last year in December. I doubt very much they care very much at this stage, but it is probably a more bitter pill for the parents and families who were not able to celebrate.
However, I think that perhaps things like graduations, weddings, and various other celebrations had become too big, too ostentatious, too expensive and too commercialized. Perhaps we will be turning to a time where small more intimate celebrations of life events will become the norm.