Knox School Board Moves 2019 Graduation Date

The Knox High School Class of 2019 will get to graduate a week sooner. The school board last week voted to move next year’s commencement ceremony from June 6 to May 31.

Principal Dr. Elizabeth Ratliff explained that the school currently builds in extra time after the last day of class, to make sure teachers still have enough time to make the necessary preparations if makeup days have to be added. “With eLearning days, we don’t think that’s as needed,” she told board members. “With the calendar the way it’s set out, if we back up an entire week, it still gives us about four days to complete everything for graduation, and that is plenty of time. The kids will be out the Friday before that, so it still gives us that week to get everything ready for graduation. We don’t need almost two weeks to get ready for graduation.”

She stressed that the change won’t take effect until 2019. “We need to set that date for a year from now so that parents can make their arrangements, they can do that, and our kids are not waiting around to graduate, when they could be off doing whatever they’re doing, instead,” Ratliff said. “A lot of our kids ship off to the military. They do that, and it changes those dates.”

This year’s Knox High School graduation date remains June 1.