Du Quoin 8th grade promotion will be May 22

The 8th grade class will be formally promoted to high school in a ceremony starting at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 22 in the Du Quoin Middle School gymnasium.

This year's ceremony will have three significant differences from previous years' events - location, timing and attire.

"Until this year the high school graduation and 8th grade promotion were back to back," with the promotion ceremony on Friday and the graduation on the following Saturday, said Superintendent Matt Hickam.

Now they will be a week apart, with graduation at 7 p.m. Friday, May 15 in the football stadium.

Instead of caps and gowns, the 8th graders will wear class T-shirts, he added. The T-shirts will provide uniformity, without the expense of caps and gowns, Hickam said.

The changes to the 8th grade promotion ceremony came out of a committee that included school board members and middle school faculty and administration.

Hickam said it was time to scale back the promotion ceremony. Completing eighth grade is worthy of being acknowledged, he said, but it is not the rite of passage it was several generations ago when for many students it was the end of their formal education.

Despite the controversy that arose last year, Hickam said the feedback he's gotten has been more positive than negative.

The middle school gymnasium has room for more than a thousand people, he added, so no tickets will be required.