As high school seniors around the country miss out on prom, scholarships and graduation due to the new coronavirus outbreak, seniors in the Scottsdale Unified School District have a message for the rest of the world: “We’ll be okay.”

Also, “Wash your hands.”

In a video titled “Dear Class of 2020,” seniors from several Scottsdale high schools introduce themselves as the generation that was born in the aftermath of 9/11, entered elementary school in the Great Recession, lived through mass school shootings, and now, the coronavirus pandemic.

Something positive in ‘all this craziness’

The students reflect on the final sporting events, musicals and time with teachers and friends that they’re missing out on as a result of being quarantined.

“Milestones that we have looked forward to for a lifetime are being taken away from us,” they said. “Our final days of senior year will forever be remembered in quarantine instead of classrooms.”

The video was uploaded to YouTube Sunday by Riley Glick, a senior at Chaparral High School.

Glick said said she came up with the idea for the video last weekend during quarantine, as she searched for a creative outlet to send a positive message to seniors in the district, and across the country.

“I will likely not see a lot of fellow students that I’ve known since kindergarten ever again in my life,” Glick said. “I think that’s one reason this video is so special. It’s a project that we all share together and it’s something we’ll be able to look back on in 10, 20, 30 years for the rest of our life as something positive amidst all this craziness.”

The Class of 2020

Glick wrote the script for the video and reached out to Tara Namie, a senior at Desert Mountain, to help reach students around the district. Namie started a group chat with senior Mia Dwyer-Kim, from Arcadia High school, and approximately 20 student representatives from each of the district’s high schools.

Namie used Sign Up Genius, a free online event organizer, to solicit seniors from across the district to sign up to read different portions of the speech. The list made its way across social media, and all of the slots filled up in a day, with representation from each of the district’s high schools.

“It was definitely a group effort,” Namie said. “The internet is great when it comes to stuff like this.” 

Namie said the video was meant to spread positivity during a time when seniors across the country, and even the world, are struggling in quarantine.

“We’re doing what we can with what we have,” Namie said. “We have the right to be sad, but we can also figure out how to uplift others if we’ve already moved past and realized, it is what it is. There’s nothing we can do at this point.”

On Monday, Gov. Doug Ducey announced that all Arizona schools would be closed through the end of this school year.

Dwyer-Kim reflected on how she felt the week before spring break, when all she wanted was to get away from school for the week.

Looking back, she says she wishes she could have taken that last week and savored it.

“It was the last week we’ll have in high school,” she said. “This whole experience shows you how grateful you should be for what you have.”

‘We will be stronger, and we will get stuff done’

But the students in the video insisted they would not be deterred, highlighting the hardships their generation have lived through up until this point.

“Through every hardship and success, we’ve gotten stronger,” the students said in the video. “We will overcome this obstacle, we will make special memories, we will be stronger, and we will get stuff done.”

The students ended the video with a call to action, asking the public to be a part of the solution as the world is stuck in quarantine together.

Call to flatten the curve

They asked that the public flatten the curve, a phrase that has become a rallying cry during the epidemic and seeks to spread out the number of coronavirus cases over a longer period in order to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

The students asked people to wash their hands, stay out of the public and social distance.

“We beg you to be apart of the solution,” the students said. “Together, we can end this chaos.”

Have a tip out of Scottsdale? Reach the reporter Lorraine Longhi at [email protected] or 480-243-4086. Follow her on Twitter @lolonghi.

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