After finding out they will not be able to attend their graduation ceremony because they are not vaccinated against COVID-19, students at Grenada Hills Charter High School and their parents are protesting outside the school Wednesday morning.
Emotions are running high for the students as they approach the end of the year and their high school careers, as kids looked forward to walking the stage.
The protest was held around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.
It’s not the first time the students and their families held demonstrations over the decision to ban unvaccinated students from the ceremony — they also gathered earlier in May.
The group is demanding that dozens of unvaccinated high school seniors and at least 10 eighth graders be allowed to attend their graduation and culmination ceremonies. They say it is a very special event in their lives, and they should not be excluded from it.
Nathan, a student at Grenada Hills Charter High School, shared his feelings on not being allowed to attend his graduation.
“I feel sad, because I don’t — I’m not graduating with the other students,” he said. “Because I worked so hard, I stayed up every night doing all my homework, like till 12, to turn in all my work to get a good grade, and then to not be a part of the ceremony.”
Grenada Hills Charter High School responded, in part, with this statement:
“Our student vaccination policy reflects GHC’s long history of making decisions that are in the best interests of our students, all of whom attend voluntarily as GHC is a school of choice.”
