If the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School doesn’t want to be accused of acting like a publicly funded institution for the select, it should stop acting like one.

Clearly, the school in Hadley provides a valuable alternative education for students. The charter immerses roughly 470 students in one of the most important languages of the 21st century, preparing them for a world increasingly influenced by an emerging power.

Graduation season provides a perfect opportunity to celebrate such strengths, as seniors stride across the stage to receive their diplomas and bask in words of praise and inspiration as they move into the world.

The Chinese school’s graduation was a particularly momentous event this year, as the 11 graduating seniors formed the first class to graduate from an institution that opened in 2007 and now serves students from some 30 Pioneer Valley communities. But, for reasons that remain fuzzy, school leaders decided to bar the press from covering the June 2 celebration — a sharp departure from the tradition of local schools inviting the media to use words and images to share the event with the wider community.

Asked why, Executive Director Richard Alcorn said the ceremony was “oversubscribed” and that parents had asked to keep it private. It doesn’t take a big leap, however, to wonder if the reason had at least something to do with the school’s unhappiness with a May 27 Gazette article laying out parent complaints about what they describe as the poor treatment of students needing special education services.

Donna Thibault-Wang is one of the unhappy parents. While her family was excited when her son began attending the school in 2010 as a first grader, in the years that followed Wang said she experienced one frustration after another in trying to get her child the help he needed — followed by what she describes as pressure from the school for the student to withdraw. “Basically it’s a way of making the parent feel like, ‘Your child doesn’t belong here,’” she told reporter Dusty Christensen.

Some parents of special education students offered only praise. One, Kristin Neal, says her 10-year-old daughter, Tessa, has had ample help with issues created by her diabetes and ADHD. Said Neal, “The school has been nothing but proactive with my child.”

Still, statistics raise questions about the school’s service to children with special needs; of the state’s 404 school districts, only nine had a lower percentage of students with disabilities in 2016. The Chinese school had 5.9 percent of students in that category, compared to 17.4 percent statewide, 19.48 percent in Northampton public schools and 18.6 percent at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Public Charter School.

Chinese school administrators have denied providing substandard services, but the parent complaints played a key role in state school officials denying the Hadley school permission to expand. Clearly, the school needs to do a better job making its case, providing more information — not less — to demonstrate to the public that it’s serving all students.

Reactions among parents and members of the public have varied, with some parents decrying what they see as an unfair focus on the press exclusion and the challenges of special education shared by most every school. “This issue (special education) is not relegated to just PVCICS — so why print a front page, headline story about only our school?” Jeff Palm, of Florence, who has two children at the school, wrote in a June 7 column for the Gazette.

The decision to close the graduation drew sharp criticism from some. “This school is a publicly funded institution,” Alex Kent of Amherst wrote in a letter to the editor. “The public has every right to know what goes on there, good and bad. Could it be that school administrators are simply displeased with some of the negative press their school has gotten over the years?”

Clearly, graduation is not the time to hash out complex issues of educational fairness. But symbolically, it celebrates the payoff of an investment made not just by the families and educators present, but also by the broader community. To bar the door is to say to that community: You are not welcome here.

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