A Dean Signed Up for Two Hours of Cheering Cars

Two heads of school. One held still for every photo. The other reached.

Afterward the school's magazine collected recollections. Kate Benton, the middle school dean department head and a performing arts teacher, was stationed with three colleagues at a corner of the route. She could hear the staff across the lot cheer each time a new car entered the driveway. So when the car turned the corner to them, they cheered too, waved, and, in her word, woo-hoo'd.

Some of the graduates she had deaned in seventh grade. "I'd signed up for two hour-long sessions but ended up staying almost to the end," she said. "I didn't want to miss cheering for anyone."

Every time a car turned in, she had thirty seconds before it might be one of hers.

A graduate in the same collection said she had been hesitant about a drive-through graduation, and that the faces of the teachers and staff, and alumni, along the route had blown away her expectations. Another wore the kente cloth from his elementary school graduation and called the cardboard cutout photo iconic.

Across Los Angeles that spring, schools improvised. A local paper listed virtual ceremonies, a car parade, and seniors given yard signs and keepsake boxes.

In the spring of 2020, the eldest turned ten. Her party was a car parade. Eleven cars drove past our house honking, at about four miles an hour. We had signed up the neighbors for fifteen minutes. My wife and I stood on the lawn for an hour and ten, because every time we thought it was over, another car came around the corner, and it was always somebody we knew.

The eldest graduates in 2028. I have already been told there will be no cutout of me. I have asked whether there will be a grabber arm. She says that depends on how I behave.