While the province has said it would like to see all schools in the province hold in-person, outdoor graduation ceremonies this month, most local school boards haven’t updated their plans yet as they await Ministry of Education direction.
In a release to media, the province said the government would allow school boards to invite graduating elementary and secondary students to return to school in June for a short, outdoor celebration, where physical distancing is possible.
“Students have worked incredibly hard throughout the pandemic, with important milestones like graduation ceremonies impacted,” said a press release from the province. “Ontario students deserve this positive conclusion to their academic journey, safely.”
Further complicating matters are comments made by Premier Doug Ford on June 2, who said the government would like to see schools host outdoor graduation ceremonies “for students in all grades.”
Shannon Royster, a Grade 12 student at Confederation Secondary School, has been campaigning along with some of her friends to have an in-person graduation ceremony.
She said she was disappointed back in February when the Rainbow District School Board announced it was already asking schools to plan virtual June graduations due to the pandemic.
“I looked at that and I thought there’s no way they could know what the cases would be like in June at the end of February,” Royster said.
She said that she feels like over the past two school years, “there were a lot of memories that were stolen from us,” including dating, hanging out with friends, getting jobs and getting driver’s licences.
Graduation “was one that was almost set in stone,” Royster said. “It was a rite of passage. It was a memory we were promised we were going to make our entire lives, and that was taken away from us.”
Royster and friends sent out a survey to Grade 12 students at Confed, and despite the difficulty in connecting while school was virtual, they received 28 responses from students, all of them agreeing they wanted an in-person graduation.
“I contacted the school board, the premier and (Public Health Sudbury & Districts), and the only people to get back to me were Health Sudbury,” she said. “They basically just said there’s nothing we can do.”
She said she was excited to hear the province’s announcement, because “it meant we finally had backing. The government said, ‘yes, this can happen, this will happen,’ and that it means that everybody who reached out. The voices were heard.”
The teen also liked Ford’s idea of graduations for students in all grades. She said her brother, who is finishing up his Grade 9 year, missed out on having an in-person Grade 8 grad last year, and would get the celebration he should have received.
Royster is urging the Rainbow board to start planning in-person graduations.
“The longer that they wait, the less time that schools have to prepare for that and the less likely it is that students will be able to have a graduation,” she said.
Meanwhile, we haven’t received much in the way of answers from local school boards on what their plans are for possible in-person graduations.
A spokesperson for the Rainbow board said she would get back to Sudbury.com on the matter on Wednesday of this week.
Sudbury Catholic District School Board director of education Joanne Bénard said in a written statement that the board is waiting for further direction from the Ministry of Education, and did not have anything to report at this time.
“The Ministry will work with the Council of Directors of Education (CODE) and the Ministry of Health on providing guidance to support implementation,” Bénard said.
While detailed plans aren’t out, a spokesperson for Conseil scolaire public du Grand Nord de l’Ontario (CSPGNO) said graduation ceremonies at most schools in the board will be virtual, although she said one high school is going to do a drive-through graduation.
A June 4 letter on the issue was also sent to parents by Conseil scolaire Catholique Nouvelon. The letter (which was in French only, so we put it through Google translate), said the board was awaiting “clear and precise instruction from the government.”
After that, it would be able to determine the form graduations would take. “Our secondary schools will inform you shortly of the details of their celebration,” the letter said.
