InFocus, Palo Alto High School’s broadcast publication, will be livestreaming the graduation for the Class of 2026 at 5 p.m. Thursday from Earl Hansen Stadium.

As in the past few years, the service will provide access for people who cannot attend the ceremony.

Senior Jake Wang said he has grandparents who live far away and cannot attend the ceremony, but the livestream allows them to support him from afar.

“My grandparents live in New Jersey, and traveling across the country for a short two-hour ceremony would not make sense for them,” Wang said. “But they were super excited to know that they would be able to watch from home.”

Satterthwaite said the livestream is a learning experience for students in the broadcast journalism program. A large portion of broadcasting work involves livestreaming, and an event of this magnitude gives students real-world experience.

“If you’re going to go into broadcasting, you should know the skills involved with livestreaming. That’s really important,” Satterthwaite said.

According to Satterthwaite, the idea of InFocus livestreaming graduation came from a student.

“A student in the broadcast journalism class really wanted to learn more about livestreaming, but we didn’t have the equipment,” Satterthwaite said. “He went to [Assistant Principal] Mr. [Jerry] Berkson and proposed the idea of Paly buying this equipment to give the students the ability to do this livestream [for graduation].”

According to Satterthwaite, students go through the process of setting up the equipment, troubleshooting, and learning new techniques to improve the quality of the stream each year.

“It’s been a constant struggle every year one way or another, but the equipment has gotten better, and we’ve learned more about how to do it,” Satterthwaite said.

The InFocus livestream can be found here.