Deployed service members will be able to view their high school graduating seniors crossing the stage and moving their tassels from right to left via live webcasts on graduation day.
The Department of Defense Dependents Schools of Europe, the U.S. Army Europe, and the U.S. Army 5th Signal Command have combined assets, talents, and technologies to enable the live webcasts via the Internet. The effort will allow at least 18 graduation ceremonies to be viewed by an estimated 211 deployed parents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations around the world. Using web technology, deployed parents will be able to see their graduating senior cross the stage and view student messages recorded for the occasion. The collective effort is intended to give graduating students and deployed parents the opportunity to share in this life event.
The first graduation ceremony will be webcast on June 5 at 4 p.m. Ten graduation ceremonies will take place simultaneously on June 6. The last ceremony will be webcast on the evening of June 13.
The schools identified as having students with deployed parents are:
June 5- Hanau and Bamberg
June 6- Naples, Heidelberg, Hohenfels, Kaiserslautern, Ansbach, Baumholder, Ramstein, Vilsek, Lakenheath and Aviano
June 7- Mannheim and Rota
June 8- Patch High School in Stuttgart, H.H. Arnold in Wiesbaden, and Vicenza
June 13- AFNORTH