CANAAN — For many high school seniors, graduation is a chance to gather with friends and teachers, snap group photos, toss hats into the crowd and give heartfelt hugs goodbye.

But for Upper Valley seniors graduating this year, celebrations may happen entirely behind the screen of a computer or the front seat of a car.

The outbreak of COVID-19, and the ensuing social distancing orders and rules prohibiting large gatherings, have disrupted the beloved traditional ceremony at high schools around the country. In the Upper Valley, administrators are struggling to find an alternative.

“They are a very close class and they are attached to tradition,” Mascoma Valley High School Principal Tom Fitzgerald said via email this week about the school’s senior class. “They would like as close to our traditional graduation as possible and they definitely want to see each other graduate.”

That’s the reason Fitzgerald said he and his Mascoma colleagues have spent weeks talking to students about what they want to see, and have settled on three potential graduation ceremony options for the early-June event.

The first would be a “drive up” graduation where students arrive in cars and step out only to get their diplomas, Fitzgerald said.

Another option would involve streaming the ceremony online and only allowing students and some school employees to be physically present for the event, Fitzgerald wrote. A governor’s order restricting large gatherings would have to be lifted for that option to work.

The final choice — and the most popular among students — is waiting to see whether social distancing restrictions are lifted by July 31, and holding a traditional graduation then instead. The school board will make the final decision on that option by May 12.

Hanover High School is expecting an entirely virtual event, according to Principal Justin Campbell. He said school administrators are still working on plans for graduation, but they hope to hold an online ceremony on June 5 that will honor each of their nearly 200 seniors.

In the weeks leading up to graduation, each senior would pick up a box with a diploma, awards and personalized letters of congratulations from their teachers. They’d also take short videos of themselves, Campbell said. The student videos, as well as videos from speakers, teachers and school officials, will then be compiled and released together as one online event the day of graduation.

It’s not the graduation anyone expected, but Campbell says he’s hopeful that students will “see how much their community supports them.”

New Hampshire education officials this week said schools going ahead with ceremonies should consider limiting audience size to two guests per student.

The DOE said one option could be to have people stay in their cars, parked in every other spot, and graduates would exit in small, appropriately spaced groups, to get their diplomas.

Diplomas also could be distributed “drive-up” style, or participants could be spread out among classrooms within a school.

While some schools are starting to plan, others were waiting on directives from Vermont’s Agency of Education and New Hampshire’s Department of Education before making any decisions.

Vermont education officials are expected to release guidelines regarding graduation ceremonies Friday.

Windsor, Lebanon and Hartford high schools are some of the schools waiting to see how those directives will play out.

“The key is trying to celebrate our graduating seniors while keeping all involved safe,” Lebanon Superintendent Joanne Roberts said in an email Tuesday.

That’s the case at Hartford, too, where Principal Nelson Fogg said the administration has been considering several options but aren’t releasing any information until the state’s announcement.

“ ‘Live and in real time’ — that’s the term we’ve been using,” he said. What that means isn’t entirely clear yet, he added.

Last Saturday, the school held a “drive-up” celebration for seniors, which was attended by about 30 seniors and some family members, who lined up in cars and walked across the football field one family at a time as their names were read on the loudspeaker.

Fogg said the event was just a way to break up the monotony of lockdown and wasn’t related to graduation. However, it did give officials an idea of what a drive-up graduation ceremony might look like on a much smaller scale, he said. Whether or not a drive-up ceremony is possible with the 120-student senior class remains to be seen.

“What we’ve lost in part is the ability to plan and look forward to things,” he said, adding that administrators hope “to work together to find something that’s unique and special.”

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.