Helen Street School Holds Drive-Through Graduation

Helen Street Elementary School faculty and staff gathered by the school’s front steps on June fourth for a socially distanced drive-by graduation ceremony to celebrate its sixth-grade class.

The event was organized by the school’s two sixth-grade teachers, Lisa Lauriat and Victor Salas.

“Saying goodbye is all we can do,” said Lauriat during a break from handing out the gift bags she had put together.

One at a time, students jumped out of their cars just long enough to say hello and goodbye to the group of applauding adults.

The class of 47, dressed up in suits, skirts, slacks, and masks, posed individually for photos while staff cheered and grinned in the background.

Principal Michael Lorenzo noted that Helen Street, which serves students from kindergarten to sixth grade, is the only ​“neighborhood school” in the Hamden system.

This means there are no buses; students either walk to and from school each day or depend on rides from older family members.

Lorenzo said this strengthens the relationship between families and the school. It allows many parents to have daily contact with school staff and often functions as an important family ritual.

As the sixth graders ventured out of their vehicles to pick up their diplomas, parents, siblings, and other relatives lingered by their cars, watching the children approach the school for the last time as current students.

Lauriat emphasized that the ​“parents are happy to have this,” pointing out that the ceremony was meant to provide closure to not only the students but to caretakers and teachers as well.

Kindergarten teacher Liz Capone echoed the importance of a ​“proper goodbye,” noting how ​“closure and connectivity impact the children tremendously.”

“We were sent home at 3 p.m. on a Thursday, and that was it!” she exclaimed when recalling the school’s closure in March.

This is why it was so meaningful to the community to come together at 10 a.m. on a Thursday a couple of months later.

The school has arranged similar events to take place next week, such as a ​“kindergarten celebration.”

“The younger students don’t really understand what’s been going on,” Capone stated, ​“but we’ve been learning alongside them.”

As difficult as the past several weeks have been, Capone added that having everyone confined to their homes has facilitated new connections and understanding: ​“It’s opened parents’ eyes to the amount of work we put in everyday” she said.

The school music teacher Elizabeth Caldwell likewise described the pandemic as a learning experience.

“It’s not what we wanted it to be,” she admitted regarding the end of the school year, ​“but I’ve been impressed with the kids and learned a lot of new technological tools.”

This was Caldwell’s seventh year of teaching, and this class of sixth graders was the first group that she had been teaching since kindergarten to graduate.

“Graduating a class was a lifelong goal,” Caldwell reflected.

“We’re heartbroken,” Lorenzo said. ​“But we tried to make this ceremony the best that it can be.”

The event was organized to be functional in addition to celebratory.

Students were first handed congratulatory gift bags containing custom tee-shirts, their graduation certificate, and a letter from the principal.

They then moved to another table, where they could return library books and rented musical instruments. The school nurses also handed back medical supplies that had been left in their office. Another station was home to all the materials left behind by students in the classroom, which had been sorted into separate bags and labeled with the children’s names.

Lauriat clarified that they chose not to postpone the graduation until later in the year because they wanted the event to ​“feel current.”

“They miss hearing and seeing us,” she empathized. ​“This gives them some sense of normalcy again.”

Both sixth-grade teachers are parents themselves: Lauriat has a 5‑year-old and Salas a 6‑year-old.

Lauriat, who is also pregnant, said ​“it’s been a challenge to work with our own kids and have meaningful lessons with our students.”

Luckily, the older students all had school Chromebooks and knew how to navigate Google Classroom before the pandemic hit.

“The sixth grade is a special class; they did a remarkable job transitioning,” remarked Lorenzo.

However, Lauriat confessed that ​“now that it’s been warm and sunny, kids are more distracted.”

Thursday was a step beyond warm and sunny; the teachers’ foreheads glistened with sweat as they stood under the summer sun in 80 degree weather to support their students.

However, the work done by Lauriat and Salas was not limited to the hour long drive-through. They had prepared one more surprise for the students: a slideshow with photos of the class over the years to be watched with family members later that day.

Though the kids were not able to graduate in an auditorium with their peers, Lauriat said ​“we encourage families to get together after all of this is over. The celebration doesn’t end here!”