Destinations: Northgate’s class of 2020 graduates in style with virtual and socially-distanced ceremonies

The seniors of 2020 faced an abrupt end to school on campus in March yet graduated with pride in two ceremonies: one as a pre-recorded online video and the other with grads receiving diplomas at the school sports stadium during assigned times for their families

Courtesy of the Broussard family

Friends Tralena Tran, Eden Broussard, Dalia Zarour and Grace Fenstermacher, four of the 373 members of the class of 2020, enjoy the end of high school in June 2020 before embarking on their next steps in education.

Northgate’s class of 2020 faced a challenging end to their kindergarten through senior year educational experience after school closed March 13. What was expected to be a two-week closure in response to the expanding worldwide pandemic caused by the Coronavirus eventually led to all students finishing the year working remotely on Google Meet or Zoom. Seniors lost some of the coveted rights of passage of high school seniors including a cancelled senior ball. However, they had not one, but two graduation celebrations.

Administrators and staff planned a two-day socially distanced ceremony on the sports stadium field June 2 and 3, with families celebrating their grads among red and gold balloons with plenty of photo opportunities during a span of about eight hours each day to accommodate county requirements of social distance. Additionally, seniors and their families enjoyed a pre-recorded virtual graduation ceremony complete with student speakers Tanay Pradhan and Stuti Pradhan, and the staff guest speaker voted on by seniors – librarian Rula Kassicieh – as well as musical performances. The virtual ceremony ended with the long-awaited highlight just as it would have had the event been held at the traditional venue of the Concord Pavilion: the booming voice of P.E. teacher Mike Ahn who (in a pre-recorded segment) announced the names of all 373 graduates loud and proud, as he has done for many years of Bronco ceremonies.

The following includes the 2020 graduates and their post-high school plans, as self-reported last spring. For any updates. corrections or input, please email the Sentinel staff at: [email protected]

2020 DESTINATIONS

 

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE 

Claire Denman 

Andrew Geckler

Dylan Rule

UNITED STATES ARMY

Autumn Geckler

UNIVERSITE DE MONTREAL, CANADA

Clemence Poret-Coirre

YORK ST. JOHN UNIVERSITY, ENGLAND

Diego Leon

TRADE SCHOOL

Tyler McCarter

THE BRIDGE PROGRAM

Gus Zepoleas

COMMUNITY COLLEGES

CONTRA COSTA COLLEGE

Jonathan Campbell 

DIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE

Sahra Ahmadzi

Sofia Alefi

Sophia Alvarez

Wais Azizi

Gina Bajalieh

Utkrisht Batra

Antonina Bazulin

Mason Bohmaker

Grace Britz

Nathaniel Burlison

Paula Caballero

Ethan Cain

Elijah Canlas

Chloe Chapman

Timothy Crnkovich

Karen Daza

Mathias Delgado

Sophia Dempsey

Alicia DiPiero

Lily Doran

Claire Drayton

Gavin Duque

Yusuf Eldesoky

Tanaz Espari

Francisco Espinoza

Grace Fenstermacher

John Finck

Victoria Fong

Kristina Fout

Dylan Gaiddon

Edith Garcia Campos

John George

Katelyn Ghorban

Jason Grinshpan

Rowan Halligan

Thien Huynh

Sierra Jenkins

Tyler Joe

Shayla Kaplan

Edward Kartamyshev

Alexa Killion

Julia Knapp

Mandy Kong

Brandon LaChance

Devin Lin

Gianna Lopez

Jiovanni Lopez

Noelle Lucas

Ahmad Malikzada

Martin Markov

Veronica Melendez

Isabella Molnar

Angelina Montosa

Anthony Moraga

Daphne Mullen

Isabella Musser

Kevin Myers

David Nakamura

Madena Nawabi

Daniel Nosovsky

Sean Dre Nuzum

Mateo Ogryczak Castillo

Marcus Juarez Omandam

Reem Osman

Jonah Pamplona

John Philippou

Gillian Pontanares

Steven Pule

Owen Pulver

Priya Raman

Siena Rassushin

Isaiah Reyes

Matthew Reyes

Connor Rhodes

Benjamin Richardson

Trevor Riley

Reanne Robiso

Stephen Rule

Diana Santana-Ando

Erlene Sarria

Ruby Sekera

Wahid Shafi

Taj Sodhi

Victoria Sular

Anne Tamura

Andrew Tran

Koby Uy

Sarah Uysal

Mia Vargas-Apalit

Gabrielle Verkhovski

Carlos Viana

Brandon Voss

LOS MEDANOS COLLEGE

Peyton Castleberry

Nicolas Whitacre 

SANTA BARBARA CITY COLLEGE

Megan Ritchie

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

BERKELEY

Sriram Diyyala

Adrian Haynes

Sarah Ng

Pratyush Sharma 

Lark Chang-Yeh 

DAVIS

Catherine Dark

Divya Lakshmanan

Kacie Li

Leila Okhravi

Paree Saeed

Sofia Saraj

Peter Sawares

Brian Wong

Jennifer Yee

IRVINE

Andrew Liu

Daniel Notcovich

Tralena Tran

Jacob Trees

Tim Qiu

Kyle Suen

LOS ANGELES

Jade Gregory

Jonathan Moore

Tanay Pathare

Stuti Pradhan

Sydney Smith

Katharina Stahl

Rachel Stokel

Jonathan Wake

Kyle Walsh

RIVERSIDE

Eden Brossard

Sean Hauser

Scott Hazarian

Karl Lindeman

SANTA BARBARA

Samuel Arenson

Grace Corrigan

Vincent Cueno 

Victoria Greenberg

Sungyoon Hong

Allyson Jian

Sanjana Kannan

Madeline Kaplan

Sydney Kellum

Sydney Kupsch

Megan Ritchie

Aditya Singh 

Isabella Sri 

Luke Tobin 

Tessa Vesklar

Hanson Yu 

SANTA CRUZ

Cabot Batie 

Tess Beckon 

Milin Doppalapudi 

Ryan Dresden 

Ethan Leung

Zoe Siman-Tov

SAN DIEGO

Ashley Burke

Jacob Kell

Kaitlyn Farrell

Luke Saunders

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITIES

CAL POLY, SAN LUIS OBISPO

Reavis Blake

Piper Christensen

Paige Davis

Spencer Hagerstrand

Kevin Krueger

Rylie Lawrence

Shea McGowan

Joshua Moorhouse

Jasna Regehr

Sam Ricafrente

Emma Ronhaar

Cole Sanchez

Jacalyn Schick

Connor Shipman

Evan Tomlinson

Alexia Watson 

Arthur Yan

Phoebe Zyla

CAL POLY, POMONA

Richard Woo

Janis Yu

CHICO

Melissa D’Alberti 

Morgan Enos

Tyler French 

Pranav Gopalakumaran

Kelly Henderson

Shane Kaiper

Rune Lervaag

Andrew MacIntyre

Erin Matson

Dylan McMahon

Julie O’Mahoney

Aidan Roberts

Haley Roberts

Cameron Saeri

Natalie Sin

Isabel Valderrama

EAST BAY

Nikita Charsov 

FULLERTON

Matthew Swadener

LOS ANGELES

Alexander Kanaan

SAN DIEGO

Hadia Bayat

Lily Bender 

Karly Cesario

Moriah McCloskey 

Aubrey Stynes

Madison Stynes

Brendan Walker

Enrique Yokoyama 

SAN JOSE

Dennis Bayasgalan 

Jonathan Gazdar

Mark Habashy

SONOMA

Victoria Dimitrov

Aubrie Hunt

Jordyn Gemenes

Bridgette O’Connor

Jessica Wortman

PRIVATE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITIES

ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY

An Luu

BIOLA UNIVERSITY 

Abigail Cheung

Kara Chung 

CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY

Grant Sielman

Kai Welsh

DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Hooriya Shaghasi

HOLY NAMES UNIVERSITY

Leonard Garcia

Olivia Nicole Lee

LA SIERRA UNIVERSITY

Jinha Kim

LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY 

Dominic Balestreri 

OCCIDENTAL

Olivia Loscavio

Elinor Taylor

POMONA COLLEGE

Eric Prough

SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE

Daylon Amin

Sonja Khamosh 

SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY

Aidan Weitl

SIERRA NEVADA UNIVERSITY

Colby Lautrup

STANFORD

Jocelyn Thai

UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO

Olivia Patterson

Isabella Bertolozzi 

Kylie Durham 

UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC

Jafer Noorani

UNIVERSITY OF REDLANDS

Nathan Boswell 

UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Matthew Giesecke

Theodore Wu 

OUT-OF-STATE COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES

ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY

Annaliese Murrieta

AURORA UNIVERSITY

Madison Hayes

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Finn Garrison

Nicholas Gearing

Peter Modlin

Danielle Pecho

Daniel Polonsky

Garrett Smith

BEREA COLLEGE

Jooyeon Kim

BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC

Alexander Hussain

Ruhan Katre

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

Logan Harlow

Miks Ramanis

Samiel Swingler

Jack Williamson

Olivia Wirig

CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART

Elle Maraccini

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, FORT COLLINS

Eva Smith

EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY

Stefano Paduan

HAMLINE UNIVERSITY, MINNESOTA 

Analisa Aragon 

INDIANA UNIVERSITY, BLOOMINGTON

Sean Suter

LEWIS AND CLARK UNIVERSITY

Margaret Levy

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Meikaylah Le Beaux

MCCALESTER UNIVERSITY

Isaac Owen

Nathan Wu

MARSHALL UNIVERSITY

Amaya Lee

NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY

Cyrus Lennox

Jessica McCann

PURDUE UNIVERSITY

Oliver Shi

Neha Sunil

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN

Seoha Kim

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Cassidy Baumann 

SAM HOUSTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Keely Herzog

SETON HALL UNIVERSITY

Francis Lofranco

SOUTHERN OREGON UNIVERSITY

Liv Villanueva

TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

Alexandra Miloradovitch 

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

Paige Benson

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Shaye Khanna

Grace Zodikoff

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

Madison Malakoff

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER

Aynsley Burlison 

Cassandra Parrisher

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

Michael Dulay 

UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

Isabella Samardzic

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII

Savannah Light

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

Ciera Edejer

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, FROST SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Ethan Pires

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO

Emily Shaon

Madalyn Stewart

UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN COLORADO

Riley Mendonca

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

Brian Berger 

Brian Burke 

Anthony Giannini

Caitlin Reimer

Jasmine Wong

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE

Tyler Johnson

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, DALLAS 

David Allen 

UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND

Josie Boswell 

Jayme Schick

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Kyle Adelberg

Kyleigh Cassidy

Natalie Kenney 

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

Grace Decker 

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Maya Drewicke 

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Margarita Feliciano

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

Nathaniel Wu 

VIRGINIA TECH UNIVERSITY

Sophie Ward

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Maxwell Berrien 

Cooper Birdwell

Alexis Chang  

Christopher Cossu

Jackson Malakoff

Cristina McHugh

Dominic McKinney 

WHITWORTH UNIVERSITY

Aubrey Parkinson

WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY

Colby Alexander