Senior Skip Semester | Class of 2020

By Lisa Ha

Kent-Meridian High School Class of 2020

While Senior Ditch Day is an annual senior tradition, I never expected it to turn into Senior Skip Semester.

On March 12, I was sitting in a charter bus heading for Whitworth University in Spokane for a visit program. My phone began to blow up with notifications from my friends about the news.

We wouldn’t come back to school until April 27, but this later changed to not going back to school at all for the rest of the school year. My class would be missing out on the most important year of high school and the memories that could have happened will never see the light of day. It is important for us to do our part in helping flatten the curve by staying home even if it means sacrificing senior experiences and opportunities that we all looked forward to.

The Class of 2020 high school seniors have been working tirelessly towards graduation for over a decade in the K-12 schooling system. Only for our graduation ceremony to be canceled with the possibility of it moving online and prom, our final dance, to be undecided. It’s especially heartbreaking for first-generation students—where graduation marks the beginning of a new legacy for many families and symbolizes hope for more financially stable lives moving forward. As the first in my family to graduate high school, I told my mom—who had already planned her outfit a year ahead of time—about the cancellation of graduation and she was extremely disappointed to hear the news. I was also looking forward to decorating my cap in preparation for walking the stage at the ShoWare Center, along with other seniors.

We were also expecting other senior traditions after seeing them being performed each year as a high school student at Kent-Meridian. I can imagine the yearbook being filled with empty pages from what was supposed to be our last high school semester. Prom pictures and pictures of cultural clubs performing at our annual Multicultural Assembly would have populated a number of those pages. Student-athletes involved in spring sports weren’t just devastated for the loss of their team pictures and memories, but also for their fellow seniors, whose final season already ended before it begun. My friends who were turning 18 after the lockdown started were disappointed in being unable to celebrate the milestone in becoming an adult and a high school graduate, too.

With March 12 being my school district’s last day, it is unfortunate that no one was able to make their final goodbyes to their peers, friends, teachers and other staff members when school was in session because the cancellation was so abrupt.

Because of the nation and state-wide lockdown, most if not all social gatherings have been canceled, postponed or moved online. This has impacted seniors in their college admissions process. We are missing out on the ability to physically visit colleges that we must commit to before May 1 or June 1. Not being able to visit makes it challenging for students planning on going to an out-of-state institution to confidently commit. However, some colleges have transitioned to using virtual platforms to compensate for the canceled events such as admitted student days or previews.

With the ongoing pandemic causing colleges to move interactions online, many high school seniors fear that the beginning of their college career will also be online. We would be missing out on the traditional “college experience.” Many colleges have also begun trying to compensate for the crisis by pushing back deadlines, waiving standardized testing requirements, offering relief funds or emphasizing that students can appeal their financial aid if their family has lost income from the crisis. Some organizations have also extended their scholarship deadlines to accommodate students being affected by the pandemic as well as offer relief funds.

Currently, many high school students are continuing their education virtually. We are giving up the opportunity to make our last memories with our classmates in-person in the traditional classroom setting. Running Start students are still attending class online while balancing their schoolwork with their home responsibilities. Advanced Placement students are studying for their exams which have been moved entirely online. International Baccalaureate students are trying to meet deadlines set by the IBO as they have postponed certain deadlines, but not others. There has been a lot of uncertainty about IB grades after the May exams were canceled this year. I’ve spoken to a couple of college admissions counselors about this concern regarding earning college credit and it appears that a lot is up in the air even from the colleges’ perspective.

Although many high school seniors are anxious about beginning college in the fall, there are others taking different pathways, such as employment, which the pandemic will be impacting as well. As students, we are quickly trying to adapt to the upcoming and rapidly changing conditions every day, while juggling both schoolwork deadlines and the trauma that comes amidst a global crisis.

* Lisa Ha is a senior at Kent-Meridian High School. She plans to attend either Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma or the University of Washington in Seattle in the fall and major in computer science.