Today marks the first day in five that did not reach the 100-degree mark. It is only one of 3 4-day 100 degree streaks in history and is the earliest on record. Unfortunately is came during a period when Wake County Public Schools are holding graduations . Thousands of graduating students and their families will sit in oppressively hot ceremonies held in non-air-conditioned facilities. It used to not be this way.

While seven high schools will have the luxury of graduating in air conditioned facilities such as Memorial Auditorium and (Broughton’s) Holliday Gymnasium, ten schools will be graduating in the sweltering environment of Reynolds Coliseum. These schools are being forced into the N.C. State facility because the City of Raleigh closed its old civic and convention center in 2005 in order to make way for a new convention center hotel. This was a facility that was not well-suited for any particular function, but was flexible and offered ample, comfortable space for functions like high school graduations.

The City of Raleigh’s new convention center opens up later this summer, and will be used for future graduations, however the setting of a large, flat, convention floor will be a big disappointment for those in attendance.

We already have a perfect facility for high school graduations, and it is not being used. It’s the RBC Center. The $158M building, centrally located in Wake County, was built with $22M that comes from the county’s hotel and prepared food tax. Additionally Wake County is pitching in $1.5M annually for renovations which will keep the site economically viable. With so much county welfare money going into such a fine facility sitting in the dark this time of year ( webcam ), the least that Gale Force Holdings can do for a major stakeholder in the RBC Center is to operate the building for a day of graduations.

With the lower level split down the middle by a curtain, two simultaneous graduation setups can accommodate a dozen graduations in one day. If graduations in the North End begin at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm and South End graduations begin at 10am, Noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, and 8pm, a total of twelve high schools could all graduate in one day. Certainly one wouldn’t want a cacophony sounds from bands and competing speakers, so a little bit of creative scheduling could offer a smooth experience for all schools involved.

It is unfortunate that the parties involved are having to settle for substandard conditions when perfect opportunities, for which the taxpayers paid dearly, are being ignored.