Congratulations, Class of 2026
Published 2:45 pm Tuesday, June 16, 2026
June is officially in full swing — and for high school seniors on the island, graduation season is, too.
For the Class of 2026, this month means soaking up the final memories of high school: the last time walking the familiar hallways to class, the last time gathering in the bleachers, the last time hearing announcements, bells, locker doors and the particular soundtrack of a place that, for years, has shaped the rhythm of daily life.
It is a strange thing, to know you are leaving a chapter while you are still standing inside it. Maybe that is why the mundane details start to look a little different. The drive up the highway to school. The ferry lines. The grocery store run where you bump into three people you know. The teacher who has known your family for years. The friend’s house you have been going to since elementary school. The fields, beaches, gyms, classrooms and town corners that make up the geography of growing up here.
High school imagery has become one of the most striking and pervasive symbols of youth in American culture. The film industry can’t get enough of trying to capture its essence. And across the globe, somehow, there is an immediate recognition of the bleachers, football fields, crowded hallways and the idea of “senior season.”
But on Vashon, high school also carries the particular intimacy of island life.
Here, a graduating class is not just a list of names printed in a program. These are students whose faces people recognize from the farmers market, the Strawberry Festival parade, youth sports, school plays, community service projects, part-time jobs and years of growing up in public, whether they liked that or not.
That can be a lot. Small communities can feel small in every sense of the word. But they also have a way of remembering, rallying and showing up.
That is part of what makes graduation on Vashon feel different. It is not only a school ceremony, or even a family milestone. It is a community sendoff.
The island celebrated its high school seniors in a car parade, where graduates rolled through downtown Vashon, procession-style, in decorated cars. That tradition started with the Class of 2020, when the need for social distancing made graduation look a lot different. Six years later, the long-running internet joke of the Class of 2020 missing out on graduation still lives on — maybe proof of the importance of some formal closure on high school.
The parade has remained because it fits this place. It lets the whole island take part, even for a few minutes, in saying: We see you. We are proud of you. Go do something with all of this.
The ending of high school marks an entrance to adulthood in a tangible way. This is your life now. You get to make decisions about what you want it to look like. There is a lot of hope in that, but also a lot of pressure.
The bittersweet departure from high school means making room for something new. Whether heading off to college, work, trade school, travel, service, athletics or something still undecided, high school seniors can prepare themselves to answer friends and family for what may feel like the thousandth time: What are you doing after graduation?
But it is OK not to have the full answer yet.
Many of the best parts of adulthood come from the plans that change, the risks that surprise you and the versions of yourself you could not have imagined at 18. The point is not to have everything figured out the moment you walk across the stage. The point is to keep paying attention — to yourself, to other people and to the world you are stepping into.
So, Class of 2026, be present in this moment, when you get to be a high school senior on the precipice of whatever comes next.
