Parents planned a Shawnee Mission graduation event. But some students weren’t invited

Patrice Mendoza looked everywhere for an email invitation that never came.

Christine Hoober doubted that organizers of a parent-led graduation ceremony for departing seniors at Shawnee Mission East High School had ever bothered to contact her.

Rebecca Schultz’s daughter was surprised to see photos of fellow 2020 graduates plastered across social media and in online news stories that recounted the recent ceremony at the Boulevard Drive-In Theater.

Mendoza is the parent of an Black and Hispanic nonbinary child and graduating senior at Shawnee Mission East.

Hoober’s child is a recent grad with a younger sibling who identifies as transgender. Schultz’s 18-year-old daughter was vice president of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

Organizers told a feel-good story about a drive-in graduation for all the seniors who missed out on this rite of passage during the coronavirus pandemic. But multiple families told The Star Editorial Board that their graduates were not invited to the ceremony.

The exclusions were glaring. And the unofficial graduation for the Class of 2020 at Shawnee Mission East was anything but celebratory for marginalized students.

“My kid was left out,” Mendoza said. “I don’t know why.”

Only 160 of the 400 graduating seniors attended the ceremony, which was not sponsored by the school district.

COVID-19 concerns forced the cancellation of traditional graduation festivities. The district held a virtual ceremony, but some parents apparently wanted more.

Organizers Leslie Slaughter and Christy Higgins promoted the in-person celebration via email. The event was open to all seniors, Slaughter said.

“I call B.S. on that,” Hoober said. “If you want to do something private, you are well within your rights. But my kid never heard anything about it, and his friends didn’t hear anything.”

Despite organizers’ assertions that all were welcome, the families of some graduates who are minorities or LGBTQ have disputed those claims.

Why didn’t organizers try harder to be more inclusive?

Slaughter said she didn’t post the event on Facebook — where more Shawnee Mission East families might have seen it — because she feared pushback for hosting a gathering during a pandemic. She doesn’t use the app and said she didn’t feel inclined to have others share the information, she said.

“I was trying to do something nice for my children, and now I feel I am being attacked,” Slaughter told The Star Editorial Board. “We’re just a couple of parents trying to salvage a graduation for our kids.”

Well-founded fears about the spread of COVID-19 prompted many schools to cancel in-person ceremonies. Shawnee Mission East was not the only school to proceed with unofficial festivities.

But what about the students who were left out? They never had an opportunity to celebrate a tremendous milestone.

There are important lessons to learn from the recent drive-in graduation. Although masks were required outside of vehicles, and social-distancing was practiced, large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic remain a risky proposition.

The school district canceled the official in-person ceremony with good reason.

Ultimately, a last-minute event that was touted as a celebration of the graduating class that had been cheated out of this experience created more heartache for the students and families who were left on the outside looking in. And what message does that send to Shawnee Mission East’s Class of 2020?