SILVERTON, Ore. — Kids and teens have missed out on so much during the pandemic and now, with the end of the year approaching, parents in Silverton have been trying to get high school seniors an in-person graduation.
Brooke Crager-Stadeli’s daughter Claire is on the dance team and was looking forward to end-of-year state competitions, but those didn’t happen. The next big thing was graduation for her senior class of almost 350 students.
“It’s the senior year and so you’ve been kind of thinking about graduation all along,” Crager-Stadeli said.
But when she and other parents found out about possible Silver Falls School District plans for the big day, they weren’t too happy.
“They were going to do a drive-through graduation. That’s it. That’s all we heard. No that’s not okay."
Parents e-mailed and called district leaders. Then, Crager-Stadeli said the district sent out a survey.
“So they did the survey and we didn’t hear anything, and we didn’t hear anything, and we didn’t hear anything,” she said.
So, she started an online petition. As of Friday afternoon, it had received more than 720 signatures.
But on Friday, word came from the district that said based on its survey results, it would be holding in-person graduation. Seniors would be split up for two ceremonies outside.
“So, my daughter’s like, ‘well we don’t get to pick [which ceremony]. I could be with none of my friends.’ I’m like well you take what you can get,” said Crager-Stadeli.
“For me, yeah it’s a win as far as we have an in-person graduation. But why couldn’t they just do that one extra step and let the kids choose which one they wanted to go to,” she said.
Crager-Stadeli believes the combination of emails and phone calls, as well as the petition helped them get that in-person graduation.
While she’s grateful for the change, she said she’s also somewhat disappointed that parents felt they needed to take it into their own hands requesting an in-person graduation.
In addition, Crager-Stadeli said parents organized a private prom and were the first ones to make yard signs for seniors. She wishes the district would have taken charge of those things.
Derek McElfresh, a district spokesperson, said they’ve held as many traditional events as possible given the pandemic in the interest of providing opportunities for all students. McElfresh said while a private, parent-organized prom is not typical, many other activities highlighting seniors are usually headed up by parent groups anyway. McElfresh listed a number of ways the district is trying to celebrate seniors, which include a senior class photo, “senior spotlights” on Instagram, and virtual senior awards, among other things. McElfresh said the district is continuing to look for more ways to celebrate seniors.