HISD seniors left wanting more
Graduates and families struggling to find closure with virtual commencements
Zayda Falcon had been in a line of cars carrying graduating seniors like her to the Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center entrance for nearly two hours when she hopped out, was cheered as her name was read over a loudspeaker, and posed with her principal against a wall of balloons as her mother fired a confetti cannon through her sunroof.
“And that was that,” her mother, Margarita Falcon, said as her daughter climbed back into the car.
“Yeah,” Zayda added, her voice falling. Then she perked up -- “Mommy, I’m right here! ‘Zayda Alexis Falcon,’” Zayda said, underlining her name in a printed program with a pink thumbnail. “I made it. I made it.”
Those 90 seconds were the closest Zayda Falcon has come to closure on her high school career, after Houston Independent School District decided in May that the coronavirus would prevent its campuses from hosting in-person graduation ceremonies for its 11,000 graduates.
Shortly after announcing the decision, HISD Superintendent Grenita Lathan acknowledged other districts were continuing with ceremonies, but said concerns about participants’ safety and about whether efforts to enforce social distancing would spur confrontations contributed to the decision. A district spokeswoman declined comment Sunday.
Instead, families from all 44 high schools could tune in at 1 p.m. Sunday to see pre-recorded messages from Lathan, HISD
trustees, their principals, and their school’s valedictorian and salutatorian, then see a slideshow of seniors’ photos as their names were said aloud.
“By any measure, what you’ve missed is significant, and when you remember this time in your life it will feel bittersweet,” Lathan said, noting that students had left school without saying goodbye to their friends or teachers and had missed prom and traditional commencements. “But when you think back, I also want you to remember that the class of 2020 is the class that persevered in the most daunting of circumstances.”
“Don’t focus on what you’ve lost,” she added. “Focus on what you’ve gained: Adaptability, perseverance and strength.”
Margarita Falcon, who gathered 2,860 names on an online petition calling on HISD to hold in-person commencements, had to drag Zayda in front of the computer to watch; afterward, the graduate called it “a waste of time.”
Zayda had not coasted through school carefree. Diagnosed at age 8 with a chronic kidney disease,
she had experienced chemotherapy, a transplant, the loss of that transplant, and years of dialysis. Her condition cost her the first semester of her freshman year, and forced her to take extra credits to catch up.
“It’s huge for any student, especially when you’re in a low-income, one-parent household,” Margarita Falcon said. “For my daughter, it’s a humongous thing for her to be able to graduate. There’s just been so many odds against her for her to get to this day, so for her to get here and HISD to say, ‘No, this is all you can have,’ it’s very disappointing.”
And so Margarita was determined to celebrate her daughter’s achievement: She stood on the sidewalk outside the school for 15 minutes to take a picture of the school digital sign when it finally cycled through to show her daughter’s name in red text: “Congratulations Zayda Alexis Falcon, Class of 2020.”
She parked on the shoulder of Interstate 45 southbound to take pictures of Zayda in her graduation cap with the “Be Someone” railroad trestle in the background.
She watched outside the school fence when the campuses held seniors-only celebrations on June 5, featuring a video with
Mayor Sylvester Turner, Astros shortstop Carlos Correa, gymnast Simone Biles, and other celebrities. At Sam Houston, the students stood in the parking lot without chairs and had popsicles and water; “It was kind of like a 5th grade ceremony,” Zayda said.
“Since COVID happened,” she said, “our year just got blown away, basically.”
Margarita Falcon hopes a graduation party she is planning for Zayda at a rental hall that is waiving its fee for high school seniors – and which will feature a substitute commencement segment — will help provide closure.
Other celebrations
Some families made the most of the virtual commencements.
David Gebhardt, a Milby High School alum whose daughter Destinee Espinosa graduated this year, cheered with family “as loud as we would have had she walked across a stage” while watching the video Sunday afternoon.
“Considering what’s going on right now, the fact that they even tried to do anything at all, I commend them for that,” he said. “Could the production quality have been better? Possibly. But they may have had a short time.”
Gebhardt had been impressed, too, by the commencement-lite
effort the school organized at its June 5 celebration, “to let the kids feel a little bit of this moment.” Graduates crossed a decorated stage as their names were called, and social media was full of pictures of smiling young people in blue gowns amid spaced-out white chairs.
Destinee Espinosa said she did appreciate the opportunity to cross the stage June 5, and said it was nice to see her classmates in the virtual commencement Sunday.
But Espinosa, who plans to attend the Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Services near Spring once she can attend classes in person, said she still feels the district could have accomplished in-person ceremonies, as others did.
“We’re still pretty bummed out about everything,” she said of her friends. “Today we were all texting each other — we can’t fully accept the fact that we’re graduated because everything they did, it just doesn’t give us that feeling. The time taken off from school feels like it’s just a long break and at the end of it I’ll have to go back to school. But then it hits me I’m done.”
The hardship has spurred some communities to get creative.
Milby alums Victoria Tunchez and Alyssa Perez organized an “Adopt a Senior” effort that resulted in 150 of the school’s seniors being sent gifts from community members.
And parents of Waltrip High School seniors are organizing a July celebration at a private venue near the school with an entry fee covering the senior and two guests; about 50 of the school’s 380 seniors have signed up, said co-organizer Tirsa Gonzales.
Gonzales, too, watched through the school fence as her son, Noah, participated in Waltrip’s June 5 celebration.
But Noah Gonzales, who did not watch Sunday’s virtual ceremony, felt the June 5 event not only failed to bring closure but also suggested the district could have done more – especially given that few students wore masks or observed social distancing, the exact situation the district had hoped to avoid by moving commencements online.
“They definitely could have moved forward with a formal graduation ceremony for seniors all over HISD, no doubt about it,” said Gonzales, who plans to enlist in the Army this fall. “It seems like they don’t want to put effort in.”