Maine High School Class of 2020, Congratulations! Your graduation from high school marks a celebration of your journey and your learning, and is a tribute to the knowledge, skills and passions you are taking with you into the next adventure. No one could have predicted that the final months of your high school career would ever look like this, that your graduation events would not look the same as those of your friends and family members. And yet you have remained resilient, you have remained hopeful, you have remained an inspiration for so many of us. Graduation will not be the way you imagined, but you join 3.8 million students who will have this story to tell of your high school graduation in the midst of this history-making global pandemic. You are not alone, and you are not forgotten. You are Maine’s Class of 2020.

Commissioner of Education Pender Makin has worked on behalf of Maine students for nearly 30 years, and knows how important graduation is to high school students and their families. She has a special message of appreciation for the Class of 2020.