The Mercer Island High School Class of 2019’s graduation ceremony, an otherwise jubilant occasion for seniors and their families, was marred by the event being held at a location that Islanders objected to as “unfamiliar” and “not up to our community’s standards.”
“I understand that Mercer Island doesn’t have a space big enough to host graduation, but we’d have been willing to go to Seattle or Bellevue,” said one parent. “Get a load of this place… Does it even have Tesla-compatible chargers?”
“I didn’t think we’d ever been to this part of King County before,” said a member of the Class of 2019, “But now that I see it, I think we might have driven through it once by mistake on our way to Crystal.”
Not everyone was critical of the Mercer Island School District’s choice of venue. Graduating senior Wyatt Pivlitch, co-president of the MIHS Woke Students Association, commented, “Education doesn’t stop at the classroom door. While the journey was well outside my comfort zone, I am grateful to [the school district] for expanding my consciousness with this enriching experience. I’m only sorry it happened too late for me to write about it on my college application essay.”
In response to the uproar, a group of local concerned citizens plans to raise money to build a retractable roof over the MIHS football field, which would enable it to host future graduations. Said one Islander: “The less often we need to leave Mercer Island, the better.”