YORK COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — York High School seniors saw a familiar face in their yards this morning: their principal.
But they weren’t in trouble, not even close.
“We put the signs in the yard, rang the doorbell socially distanced a good 6 feet away, and then surprised them all,” said York High School Principal Dr. Shannon Butler.
Tuesday morning, one by one, Butler and a group of teachers went to every senior’s home and placed a graduating “Class of 2020” sign in their yard.
That makes for 250 stops in order to hit each senior’s home — a feat that took Butler eight hours to map out.
She says she got the idea from a principal in another state who did something similar and worked with a local company that made the signs.
The teachers broke up into 24 teams and spread out all over the area to make it happen.
“I would do it again in a heartbeat. Honestly, this morning was probably the best morning I’ve had since I laid eyes on those kiddos,” Butler said.
Butler says she hopes this sent a message to students that the faculty and staff are thinking about them and miss them.
She says they got this all done in a two-hour span, and emotions ran high.
“Today was really fun. The messages from my staff, I had staff in tears, parents in tears, and kids in tears. A lot of it was happy tears, just to be able to make some of that face contact and let our kids know just how much they mean to us and it means a lot to my staff as well,” she said.
Butler says there’s still a possibility the seniors could have their prom and graduation ceremony.
However, when it would happened and what that would look like is still up in the air.
She also says her team has a few more surprises up their sleeves.