SHERRARD, Ill. — With kids out of school for the rest of the year, seniors are missing out on their last days of high school, so teachers are trying to make them feel special.
"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity," Sherrard High School senior Payton Hutchins said. "We are not going to have what normal senior classes get to have."
"When we first had the two week break initially, I figured it would be over after that," Sherrard High School senior Nate Olson said.
Students in Illinois and Iowa will not return to school for the rest of the school year.
"There is mud volleyball, prom, and there is graduation," Sherrard High School Senior Lauren McMillin said. "I love coming to school and I love seeing my friends. I love being here and it just sucks that I won’t ever get to do that again.”
Trying to make her students still feel included, Sherrard English teacher Tammy Crippen got creative.
"It's not going to be in their memory," Crippen said. "I just want to think of ways to create those memories virtually. It is very emotional.
She took yearbook photos of more than 100 students and cut them out. She glued the pictures to letters that read "SENIORS 2020" and hung them in the school windows.
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"I think I needed these letters just as much as they did, I needed to see all their faces again," Crippen said. "It's not going to be the same as wrapping your arms around them when they are done with school."
Crippen also helped pass out free yard signs to each senior with their names on them. They were donated to the school by FoxTail Vinyl Designs who say they have printed out over 650 signs for 26 different schools in the Quad Cities area.
"It just reminds us that this bad tragedy has happened, we are still all in this together," McMillin said.
"It makes me feel appreciated and loved," Hutchins said.
The school is still working out a plan for a graduation ceremony for the seniors.