www.southingtoncitizen.com
REOPENING SCHOOLS
Southington High School graduates Chloe Grabowski, left, and Avery Cowen take a selfie as they wait for the start of the Southington High School graduate motorcade at the high school before heading through town Tuesday night to celebrate this year’s graduating class.
Officials foresee unknown expenses By Michael Gagne Record-Journal staff
Aaron Flaum, Record-Journal
Graduation motorcade brings smiles, excitement and closure By Michael Gagne Record-Journal staff
Lucca Riccio, president of Southington High School’s class of 2020, wore his blue cap and gown as he leaned against a red convertible with a message written with blue painter’s tape on the hood, which read “PREZ 2020.” The car was parked in the lot in front of Riccio’s school.
Friday, June 19, 2020
Riccio would soon be seated in the passenger seat in one of hundreds of vehicles that would venture out into Southington, giving the class of 2020 a festive motorcade sendoff to punctuate — with an exclamation of cheers and car honks — a school year that otherwise had ended abruptly in midMarch due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the disruption to their final
year as Southington High School students may have been disappointing, students, faculty, and family were all smiles Tuesday evening. “I was expecting it to be fun,” Riccio said with a wide grin moments before the motorcade drove off. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this exciting. See Graduation, A7
Superintendent of Schools Tim Connellan, speaking during a remote meeting of the Board of Finance recently, spelled out the uncertainty the district faces when it comes to reopening school buildings. “Right now we have very little idea of what the state is going to require of us to return students,” Connellan said, adding that the district expects to receive direction in the next couple of weeks. A previous 17-page document released by the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group at the beginning of June outlines the requirements for summer school — imposing significant restrictions on the number of children allowed in classrooms and on buses. For example, the rules impose a group See Schools, A2
R229860
Volume 17, Number 25