Toll Gate and Pilgrim High School grads will get to walk across the stage and receive their diplomas from their principals – not virtually, as many schools and colleges have planned, but for real and with members of their families in attendance to cheer them on.

And while the COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for dramatically altering the graduations as we have come to know them, it’s not going to change the dates for either of the graduation ceremonies. The Toll Gate commencement will start about 2 p.m. on Tuesday, June 3, at the Robert J. Shaprio Center of the Performing Arts at the school. The Pilgrim ceremony is the following day, also starting about 2 p.m. at the Pilgrim auditorium.

But don’t expect crowds, and be prepared to see masks. The graduation plan, worked out by the principals and the school administration, is designed to adhere to regulations on distancing and gatherings.

The commencements will be a hybrid of the virtual and the real, all aimed at giving graduates an experience as close to traditional graduations as possible and a video of the event that appears seamless.

“My heart has broken for our seniors,” Toll Gate Principal Candace Caluori said in an interview Monday. She said she wants this graduation to “be as close as possible” to those preceding it.

So as to keep everything within the guidelines, the class of 2020 will graduate in batches of 10 alphabetically, according to a schedule to be given each student. Each student will have the opportunity to invite two guests to the ceremony. Remarks by the mayor, school officials and the class valedictorian, salutatorian and essayist will be prerecorded. A videographer will capture the moment each graduate walks across the stage to receive his or her diploma, which will then be stitched into a full-length recording of the ceremony and provided to every graduate.

Caluori is planning for the valedictorian, salutatorian and essayist to make their remarks on June 1, when graduating seniors will report to the school to pick up their caps and gowns.

“These kids deserve it; they should graduate in person,” Pilgrim Principal Gerald Habershaw said. The former principal of Veterans Memorial High School, Habershaw notes the class of 2020 is his first full class since being at Pilgrim. Prior classes were a mix of Vets and Pilgrim students resulting from school consolation and the transformation of Vets into a middle school.

“We’re going to do the best we can under terrible circumstance,” Habershaw said.

Caluori said various graduation options were considered, including postponing the ceremony until the late summer or early fall and a drive-in event where students would stay in their cars. If postponed, she imagines, many graduates would not be around to participate even should restrictions be lifted by that time. She doesn’t believe students would stay in their cars at a drive-in graduation.

Caluori estimated the graduates and their guests would be in and out of the ceremony in about 15 minutes. A schedule is being prepared giving students the time they are to attend.

She said safety is the foremost consideration. Distancing is to be strictly adhered to and students and those in the auditorium will be wearing masks. The graduates will be given special Titan masks for the occasion, she said.

Habershaw is likewise planning an event ensuring proper distancing and precautions. He’s not so sure about wearing masks, at least not all the time. He’s thinking there should be a waiver for that very moment where the graduate is handed his or her diploma.