By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY — Parents of Ocean City High School seniors want them to know they understand the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic since the spring of their junior year, from lost extracurricular activities, sports and other events to that all-important bonding time in school with their friends.
They can’t give back what these seniors have lost, but parents can show that they have their young adults’ backs.
To that end, next week each and every senior will receive a special gift basket.
Jennifer Bowman, whose daughter Katie is in the class of 2021, said the short time these seniors have left shouldn’t pass with them feeling “flat,” “checked out” or “over it,” as they’ve been described. These seniors have spent this past school year with so many limitations and in school only two days a week.
This all hit home with her not too long ago when she got an email from the school seeking measurements for her daughter’s cap and gown.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is real. This is going to happen,’” she said.
Bowman started a Facebook group for parents of OCHS seniors and it took off. Parents want to ensure the last 10 weeks of school are special.
She works at St. Peter’s United Methodist Church and is in charge of the food ministry. “I’ve learned through ministry we need to do, do, do,” she said. “I started the Senior Parent Facebook page. This isn’t about I. This is about we.”
The response was overwhelming.
“I like to say God has worked through it all. It’s amazing you put it out there and it’s the community we live in. Everybody wants to help,” she said. “For parents grieving the loss of things they didn’t get to experience this year with their children, it’s therapeutic.”
Last spring Bowman worked with the OCNJ CARE committee to make up for the loss of the prom and after-prom, helping put on a red carpet event that allowed the seniors to dress up and walk a red carpet across Atlantic Avenue by the high school and then a variation of an after-prom that allowed the seniors to drive through at the Ocean City Tabernacle to receive gifts and prizes.
They have chosen March 16-17 to distribute gift baskets to the students because that marks a full year since the pandemic began and when schools closed to in-person learning in 2020.
Bowman is excited about what is in the gift baskets, but didn’t want to reveal it in advance. (She previewed some of the contents to this newspaper reporter with the promise it would not be revealed until after the seniors received them.) The two-day event is for the two cohorts – half the class is in school on any given day.
“This is going to be spectacular. I don’t want to give it away though because it’s really a surprise for them.”
Bowman said the parents group did a little dry run with a smaller gift bag for seniors on Valentine’s Day. This time, the bags will be assembled Saturday at St. Peter’s so parents who work during the week can be involved.
“Everybody wants to help,” she said, “asking, ‘What can I do? What can I do?’ It’s really cool. It’s been really special and therapeutic to work together. It’s sad to say but after 13 years of school here in this community I’m still meeting people I’ve never meet before.”
Changed district calls for new way to unite parents
Bowman said her oldest daughter, Caroline, graduated in 2014 and the district has changed since then. School choice has added nearly 200 students from outside districts. Before choice, the students were almost exclusively from Ocean City, Upper Township or Sea Isle.
Starting the Facebook page “made me think about our school. I’m probably going to cry. It’s kind of sad to watch what’s happened with the school system …. We’re not a community of parents anymore. We’ve become a regional high school.
“Because of school choice and people moving here because of our schools, we’ve lost this kind of small town, know-everybody kind of thing and I recognize that through this pandemic there are people I don’t know anymore,” she said.
Starting the Facebook page has changed that.
“I’m getting to meet them and they’re fabulous people, but I wish I had met them four years ago,” she said.
“We have kids coming from all over. All different places. It’s great, but I feel bad for them,” Bowman said of parents. “They don’t get a chance to meet other parents unless their child is involved in a sport or drama or band.”
The lightbulb went off in her head with her senior parents Facebook page.
“Now I’m starting to think about starting a Facebook page for Kelsea’s grade (class of 2024), the freshman class, so we can all get to know each other before senior year in four years,” she said.
For the moment, the focus is on the class of 2021.
“I’m super excited about these bags that are going to go out. We all want them to feel we have their backs. We’re not going to be silent … We want to acknowledge what they’ve done for the town. They’re the ones who’ve become Eagle Scouts, built benches, picked up trash. It’s their hometown.”
She was having a discussion with Mayor Jay Gillian about feting the seniors.
“I told Jay you want these kids to remember what they had when they go over the bridge and go out into the world and make a name for themselves, and you want them to come back here and buy their parents’ house and raise their families here and start it all over again,” she laughed.