Just last night, I continued a tradition that started right after I graduated from high school where I awarded a scholarship at my town’s high school to a graduating senior who had been on an IEP throughout her educational journey.
She was amongst her peers and wasn’t isolated in any way from the class night activities.
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“It felt like we were watching our classmates graduate rather than us graduating with them.”
– Kennedy Lee
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Now, you might be wondering why I would bring this up? Why would I say that the recipient of my scholarship wasn’t excluded from her peers? Well, I bring this up because recently, a school in Tennessee is under fire for have graduating senior Kennedy Lee and two other students excluded from sitting with their classmates at Greenfield High School’s graduation exercises.
As someone who has a developmental difference like Kennedy, it makes me very disappointed to hear and see this student who worked hard and overcame obstacles only to be reduced to watching her peers walk across the stage from the audience. I don’t know what was going through the principal’s mind, but from what I see and hear, this is something that should NEVER have happened in the first place.
Kennedy’s situation is just another example of the fact that not all educators are willing to accommodate students of all differences into activities such as graduation. To give some background, Kennedy has what is known as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS as well as a functional neurological disorder. This requires her to have a wheelchair as part of an accommodation in order for her to go across the stage.
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Now, looking at this picture, you might be asking yourself one question, “Why does she and the other two students deserve to be treated this way on this important milestone of their lives?”
The answer is there is no reason why this shouldn’t be a possibility. Kennedy and the two students deserved to go across the stage the same as their classmates. All they wanted was to be treated the same as their peers, but that didn’t happen.
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From the school administration’s perspective, they probably didn’t want the ceremony ruined by the presence of someone like Kennedy who had a hidden difference. While she understood that the move was a safety precaution, it’s something that should have been handled a lot better at least in my eyes. I get that being a school administrator is a big responsibility, but if you are excluding students from graduation just because you view them as a safety risk, what message does that send to the students who will be graduating next year and the year after that and beyond?
Plus, this whole situation is a reminder of the Dr. Seuss story, “The Sneetches,” where the star bellied sneetches exclude the non-star bellied sneetches. In this case, students were non-star bellied sneetches while the rest of the graduation class were classified as star bellied sneetches.
The sad thing is that Kennedy was probably thinking of boycotting the graduation and nobody should have to consider boycotting their own graduation ceremony. Could the school administration have had a nurse present with Kennedy and the other students in case the worst case scenario should happen at the ceremony?
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I mean think about it, students like Kennedy Lee have had to endure not having a conclusion to their junior high school years because of COVID-19 and the last thing anyone wanted was to have their high school graduation altered in any way. This goes to show that we still have a long way to go for students to be included in graduation ceremonies. Sure, there may be some accommodations that might be made, but it should be accommodations that don’t destroy the moment for that student.
I hope the administration of Greenfield High School takes a long, good look at themselves in the mirror and think about how they treated students with hidden differences like Kennedy. If they end up getting fired from their position because of this, they only have themselves to blame.
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Catch you all later!!
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