Get your caps and gowns ready, class of 2016-2017. Graduation is planned to be outside this year.

Clinton Albers, principal, has agreed along with the other Olathe high schools with the school board for an outside graduation.

ODAC will be the location where the ceremony will take place as will Olathe North; East and Northwest will have their ceremonies at CBAC.

Olathe North will be taking the earlier ceremony at 2 p.m., and South will take the later ceremony time at 7 p.m.

With sharing ODAC for graduation with North, both schools will have to adjust details in their ceremonies so they can accommodate both schools due to the little time to prepare after the earlier ceremony.

Along with having graduation outside comes the potential issue of bad weather.

“The school board has had researchers do studies on the weather patterns for over 10 years, and they show the weather should cooperate for the ceremonies that Sunday,” Albers said.

However, if there is bad weather on the Sunday of graduation, all schools will have their original setups ready in the schools and proceed to have it inside.

Being inside will bring back the issue of capacity, but every student will have a specific number of tickets in case the ceremony is moved; otherwise, students will be able to have anyone they want to attend their graduation if it occurs outside.

The school board and Albers are in full support for the change this year and anxious to see how it turns out.

“I believe it is for the better of our students so they can have anyone attend rather than the problem of telling certain family members they can and can’t attend,” Albers said.

Many high schools have done graduation outside in other school districts and now the Olathe high schools will join.