Gabby Quirova asked for loose natural curls at the hair salon, which she knew could stand up to the heat and still look intact all throughout Friday’s graduation ceremony. She’d be off to college soon, at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, a place she was originally worried would be too big and confusing to navigate, but she had recently visited and loved all of the professors she met.

She fell in love with teaching during high school and her dream is to become a special education teacher.

Two other women were getting their hair done at 1 p.m. and a hairdresser sang along with a Celine Dion song. A “happy birthday” banner was strung across the mirror in anticipation of the hairdresser’s birthday on Sunday.

It all felt so normal. And in Uvalde, there has been precious little normality since the shooting at Robb Elementary School exactly a month earlier that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Graduation had originally been scheduled for May 27, three days after the shooting. Now the Uvalde High School class of 2022 was finally going to walk across the stage. Some of the 288 graduating seniors opted to forgo the ceremony and pick up their diplomas earlier, but Gabby wanted to be there.

“You deserve to walk that stage,” Gabby’s mom, Ashley Quirova, told her daughter. She had arrived after Gabby to get a quick haircut. She was warm and upbeat, excited to give her daughter a day to celebrate. A day that’s not dominated by what happened on May 24.

“I don’t want to lose sight of what these kids have accomplished,” Ashley Quirova said. “I don’t want to lose focus on these kids who have worked so hard to be where they’re at.”

These past few years have not been easy for the class of 2022. Many of the seniors remember an incident during their eighth grade year at ​​Morales Junior High School in 2018, when two students, inspired by the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, were arrested for when they would be high school seniors.

High school has been a gauntlet of pandemic precautions and virtual school. The tragedy at Robb Elementary School has hit them all hard. Many of them had attended Robb. The 18-year-old gunman — who was killed by law enforcement to end the massacre — had been in their class before he dropped out.

The day before the shooting, Gabby joined other seniors in a local tradition: a graduation walk at Robb Elementary School. She wore the same cap and gown she would wear at graduation, as she and others high-fived the Robb students, who gave the seniors letters of support.

Gabby knew many Robb students personally — including three who died in the shooting. As part of a four-year education track at Uvalde High, she taught classes at Robb this past semester.

“I saw these little kids so excited to see us and so excited to see a new teacher,” she said. The next day, some of those students died in the deadliest shooting ever at a Texas public school.

That hasn’t changed Gabby’s mind about her future. She wants to come back to Uvalde to teach after college. She is proud of her tight-knit community, and the shooting doesn’t change how she feels about her town.

“It’s a tragedy but not a label,” she said. “Uvalde is one heart. One whole heart. No matter what happens, we’re always going to come together.”

Samantha Quiroz, another Uvalde senior who taught at Robb, was also there for the senior walk.

“It was our last day at Robb and all of these students came up to me just like, ‘Miss Q, Miss Q!’ and it was so beautiful,” she said “I loved seeing their smiles. They were giving me so many letters.”

She has a letter from one of her former students who died in the shooting. The note said: “Miss Q., I can’t wait. I hope to see you in my classes in the future.”

“It made me cry so much but it inspired me,” Quiroz said. The shooting, she said, won’t stop her from reaching her goals and being a teacher.

Photos on graduation caps

A few hours before graduation, Gabby sat at a high table in her living room while her aunt, Mary Kathleene Sprawls, did her makeup, picking pink lip gloss and sparkly gold eye shadow out of a bubblegum-colored Caboodles makeup box from the 1980s. Gabby’s favorite dog, Rosie, paced around the house while “Gilmore Girls” played on the TV with the audio turned off.

Gabby’s father, Guillermo Quirova Jr., stood watching her, still processing that his youngest child would soon be off to college. He is a retired police officer, a kind, soft-spoken man who is eager to brag on Gabby’s accomplishments in weightlifting and soccer. Every year, father and daughter help build the Uvalde High School haunted houses.

Despite the tragedy at Robb Elementary, Gabby says she is determined to become a teacher. She sometimes struggled as a student, she said, and some of her teachers took the time to help her. She wants to do the same for other children.

“What happened recently kind of gave me more of an incentive because I want to be able to protect these kids and allow them to grow up to become more teachers or maybe lawyers or principals or anything they want to be,” she said.

Her makeup done, Gabby put on a baby-blue spring dress with small white flowers, which she bought at Walmart for graduation day. Her mom, who works as a recruiter for two companies, was wearing a special T-shirt made by a woman in town, the front covered with pictures of Gabby. Her dad opted for a casual long-sleeve shirt.

They drove to the stadium early, arriving 45 minutes before the doors opened at 5:30 p.m. to give themselves time to navigate the extra security. The seniors were each given 10 tickets for friends and family, and no one without a ticket would be allowed in. Parents wouldn’t be able to take pictures with the graduates on the football field as they have in past years.

The graduates were prohibited from having cellphones during the ceremony, but Gabby planned to carry hers so she could reach her family quickly if needed. She also carried an AirTag tracking device that her aunt bought at Walmart so they could know where Gabby was at all times.

At Honey Bowl Stadium, two lines formed at the main entrance and wrapped around the block as state troopers and unmarked police vehicles patrolled nearby streets. People stood quietly in line with water bottles and umbrellas to shield them from the intense June sun that had pushed the temperature to 101 degrees. Some held balloons and customized fans with the photos and names of seniors; others wore maroon shirts with the words “Uvalde Strong.” After everyone was scanned with metal detectors and the ceremony began, the sun began to set, and the bleachers were enveloped in shade.

The class valedictorian, Abigail M. Kone, quoted Corinthians: “We often suffer but we are never crushed,” she said, then read the names of the children who died at Robb Elementary one by one. They now belong to the kingdom of heaven, she said.

“I would like to include these children from Robb Elementary as honorary members of the class of 2022 family,” she said.

The crowd stood and applauded, and many wiped tears from their eyes.

Tributes to the children who died were everywhere. Gabby had taped pictures of all 19 on her graduation cap. Many of her classmates had decorated their own caps with messages or tributes to the children.

“I know these kids aren’t going to be able to walk the stage on their own, so I wanted to be able to give them that,” Gabby said.

As the sun set and the lights clicked on to illuminate the football field, each senior’s name boomed over the loudspeakers. They filed onto the stage one by one to receive their diplomas. The ceremony closed with the farewell address by senior Lynd Danielle C. Diongzon, who began crying in the middle of her speech and continued to weep through the rest of it — a moment of release.

“We came in fall of 2018, as young freshmen, scared we would walk into the wrong class,” she started as she choked up. “We will never forget those who should be with us today. … The class of 2022 sends our love, thoughts and prayers to everyone who may have been affected by the incident that happened exactly one month ago today. Our class also asks for change, change that would prevent any other tragedy whether it is at a school, grocery store or concert.”

Afterward, Gabby’s family and friends gathered at Hangar 6 Air Cafe for dinner. It’s housed in an old World War II airplane hangar that’s still operating and offers $10 off any burger with the purchase of $100 of jet fuel. They had rented the whole outdoor patio, lit up with overhead lamps. A dozen family members and friends sat at a long table with baskets of fried pickles and iced teas and sodas.

Gabby and her cousin, Andrea Serna, cried as they posed for photos with their diplomas, sad to be leaving each other soon.

Then they showed off the matching tattoos they got on their ankles two days after the shooting at Robb Elementary — an outline of the state of Texas with a small red heart right over Uvalde.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

But for one graduating class at St. George Academy, a tiny Ukrainian school in New York City’s East Village, students and teachers celebrated making it through all of that earlier this month — and a war in their homeland of Ukraine, along with living through several years of a pandemic.

Between proms and college visits, St. George Academy’s graduating class of 13 made harrowing phone calls to loved ones in Ukraine, attended assemblies about the war and welcomed students who recently escaped the country — all while adjusting to spells of disrupted learning from COVID.

Although it wasn’t the graduation they expected, there was relief it was OK to celebrate such an important milestone. There were hugs and taking pictures by the balloons, meeting each other’s families and saying goodbye to teachers and the classmates who went through so much together.

In dire need of a joyous celebration, St. George’s principal Andrew Stasiw hoped for a commencement day focused on the students’ accomplishments, rather than the conflicts that plagued their school years. 

“We want our event to be as celebratory as possible, and the war has fatigued our school in many ways,” Principal Stasiw told The 74 days before the graduation. “In some ways, there is a sense that the school was robbed yet again of a ‘normal’ school year. With two years of pandemic and now this conflict, it really has not been a normal school year.”

But at the ceremony on a sunny June Saturday, the tears and pleading for Ukraine crept in.

It was impossible for the students, and even Stasiw, to ignore such topics. 

Salutatorian Vitalina Voitenko who arrived from Ukraine in 2018, focused on what she has overcome as an immigrant in her speech, becoming emotional as she spoke about a difficult year in front of family and friends. 

Many of her relatives had arrived just days before through the Uniting for Ukraine program.

“Our senior class witnessed history,” Voitenko said, surrounded by blue and yellow flags and gilded, Byzantine-style murals at the Saint George Catholic Church, behind the school, where the ceremony was held. 

“We survived COVID, political unrest,” she continued. “Now we are praying and hoping Ukraine will survive war with Russia. That’s a lot in four years of high school.”

Many of her relatives had arrived just days before through the Uniting for Ukraine program.

Class valedictorian, Fernando Mack, shared how grateful he was to graduate in person. Because of the pandemic, he thought a virtual graduation was likely. 

Although Mack is not Ukrainian and knew little about the country before attending St. George, he has loved learning the language and feels a deep connection to the homeland of some of his closest friends.

“To be here with my classmates just feels so good,” said Mack. “When everything was happening it kind of broke my heart, because that’s my classmates. We are all like family.” 

Mack recalled waking up one morning at the beginning of the invasion to a spiral of texts and videos from panicked classmates worried about friends and family still in Ukraine.

“Oh my gosh, it broke my heart … that’s their family,” He said.

Closing out a ceremony mixed with moments of joy and somber reflection, two Ukrainian born graduates, Voitenko and Sophia Klyuba, were surprised with scholarships from the Helena Poliszczuk-Diaz Memorial Scholarship Fund, a memorial scholarship for needy Ukrainian students at the St. George Academy.

Stasiw asked the crowd to keep Ukraine in their hearts, quickly jumping back on the piano playing uplifting tunes as the 13 students flipped their tassels to the other side, exiting the church as graduates, ready to take pictures and document the monumental moment.

In the backgrounds of their precious photos are reminders of the difficult time: blue and yellow flags waving in the warm June breeze, posters sharing how to support Ukraine.

Dozens of camera flashes later, students and their families filed into the school’s gym decorated with glistening “Congrats class of 2022” decorations, cake and Ukrainian “Kanapky” — open-faced ham sandwiches — from the neighborhood’s favorite butcher, Andrew Ilnicki. 

Stasiw met many of his students’ family members for the first time. Many thanked Stasiw for their child’s education.

One parent he didn’t meet was Klyuba’s mom, who couldn’t make it out of Ukraine on time. Her sister arrived two days before the ceremony.

“I’m very happy that [my sister] came in to share my excitement today and celebrate with me, but obviously I wish that my mom and grandma from Ukraine were also here.” Klyuba said.

The 13 St. George graduates had persevered through heartbreak and hardship — and triumphed.

“They are superstars,” said art teacher Irene Saviano. “They’ve been through the worst, but now they can achieve anything they want.”

All images by Meghan Gallagher for The 74.

After two years of a pandemic, Gelman is proud that her students have learned to speak up for themselves. For example, they asked for a room in the school to gather when they’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed. But as seniors prepare to graduate, she said it’s “been like pulling teeth” to keep them focused on academics.

“They wanted teachers to stop giving them homework,” she said. “Their priority is their mental health, not college.”

The pandemic’s impact on this year’s graduates is captured in new survey data showing that one in four seniors has changed their future plans because of COVID, and some have less desire to continue their education. Published Wednesday by YouthTruth, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, the data shows English learners, LGBTQ youth and students of color were more likely to reconsider their next steps. The results are based on responses from over 28,000 high school seniors from both 2019 and this year, allowing for comparison to the last senior class to graduate before the pandemic. 

Black and Hispanic students and boys, for example, are less likely to say they want to go to college than those who graduated in 2019. Eighteen percent of this year’s graduates said they considered dropping out. But that rate was much higher among LGBTQ students (26%) and transgender students (37%). And Hispanic students are more likely than white students to say they’re unsure about their next steps — 14% compared with 9%.

Less access to college and career counseling could be one reason for the shift in attitudes.

In 2019, 40% of graduates reported receiving guidance from their schools about career pathways, according to the YouthTruth results. Among students in this year’s class, 33% said they received such guidance. And the percentage of students saying there’s an adult they could ask to write a college recommendation letter declined for males, students in rural schools and Hispanic students.

‘I felt like I was all alone’

Seniors told The 74 they felt reluctant to seek help and that counselors sometimes didn’t offer guidance unless asked.

Yan Kyaw, a senior at Senn High School in Chicago, said his school partnered with OneGoal, a nonprofit focusing on preparing students for higher education. But he had a hard time taking advantage of the help while learning remotely.

“I did have a support system, but I didn’t use them because I felt like I was all alone,” said Kyaw, who will attend the University of Illinois Chicago and study business. In junior year, he didn’t ask for feedback on his college essays. He often found himself sitting on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He described his high school years as “a punch in the gut.”

Due to the pandemic, many seniors went without the kind of volunteer and internship experiences colleges often look for and had fewer in-person college fairs and opportunities to “set their feet on a college campus to do a tour,” said Geoff Heckman, head of the counseling department at Platte County High School, near Kansas City, Missouri. 

Students have “done their best to pick next steps based upon virtual tools and online information,” he said, “but without the genuine face-to-face conversation that is so helpful in making that determination about which direction they really want to pursue.”

Rajsi Rani, who’s graduating from Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, California, said she missed informal communication the most. 

“Because everything was virtual, there was no knowledge passed by word of mouth, which I’ve found is very helpful for this kind of information,” she said. “I did my own research on career ideas. It was not provided by my school to the extent that I think it was pre-pandemic.”

For some students, the pandemic wasn’t necessarily a setback, but instead helped them identify their goals.

Monty Woods, who attends Milwaukie High, said he always planned to stay close to home and attend Clackamas Community College. He takes care of his mother, who is disabled, and said he used to think about becoming a teacher. But the pandemic changed his mind. 

“I saw how it just drained every single staff member,” he said. Now he plans to study business administration.

‘Taking a pause’ 

Some seniors also missed out on financial aid counseling. The survey shows that only a quarter of this year’s graduates said they received help on how to apply for assistance, compared with a third in 2019.

That decline shows up in . According to the National College Attainment Network, overall rates — including first-time filers — have dropped almost 9% compared to last year, continuing the downward trend that began in 2020. Every state saw a decline, ranging from less than 2% in Texas to almost 17% in Michigan.

The Network’s report notes that “high schools are having to triage supports to students, with learning loss and academics, mental wellness and basic needs often getting more attention and investment than postsecondary transitions.” The researchers suggested the “hot economy” could also be pushing some students to choose work over college, especially those who were on the fence. 

The pandemic’s strain on family budgets pushed many students to take jobs or increase the number of hours they were working. Shelly Reggiani, executive director of equity, community engagement and communications in the North Clackamas district, which includes Milwaukie High, heard from students working as many as 30 hours a week “to keep the lights on.”

“These young people were forced into taking on that adult role at such a young age,” she said. In the past, she added, the term, “gap year,” often referred to travel plans or putting off a year of college sports. Now, she said, “it almost seems to be synonymous with, ‘I’m taking a pause.’ ”

Milwaukie High senior JohnTasia Simmons, who goes by “Tae tae,” is just glad she pulled her grades up enough to get into Portland State University. She’s struggled with a learning disability her whole life, which she said was “not a good mix” with online learning. She fell behind in algebra and English, and almost failed history.

“My assignments were just stacking up. My grades were looking friggin’ terrible,” she said. “I thought I would have to start off in community college.”