You’ve heard of graduation parades. In Key West, a graduation just happened on jet skis
Schools are finding new ways to honor their graduates.
Parades. Photos. Zoom calls.
Key West has gone its own way. And it involves water.
Students at a charter school in the city picked up their diplomas this week on personal watercraft.
Somerset Island Prep charter high school held its inaugural graduation Tuesday evening on the ocean, at the Atlantic end of Duval Street that’s home to the Southernmost House mansion.
In the age of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which requires social distancing and advises against gatherings of 10 or more, Somerset Island Prep came up with the uniquely Key West event.
Dressed in caps, gowns and face coverings, 12 seniors jetted out one at a time on a personal watercraft to an anchored boat, where principal Tom Rompella handed each a diploma.
“During a jet ski graduation everyone’s going to get a little wet,” Rompella said. “You just don’t wear your good shoes.”
Rompella said the idea came from educator Nick Wright, founder of the Keys Learning Center, a tutoring and test prep center that shares a building with Somerset Island Prep and is partners with the charter school.
Neither students nor the school had to spend money to rent the personal watercraft. They were on loan from Fury Water Adventures, which also gave the grads a free three-hour training course the day before the ceremony, said Rompella.
Somerset is formerly the Key West Collegiate School, a charter high school founded in 2010 and housed on the campus of the College of the Florida Keys. The school has always been affiliated with Academica.
But the school moved into brand new digs on Flagler Avenue in 2019 and took on the Somerset name. This was its first graduation as Somerset Island Prep.
“It really is a new school,” Rompella said.
And for the new school, a new wave.
This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 1:55 PM.
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