The Carnduff Education Complex has turned to digital avenues to salute its graduating class of 2020.
The school was scheduled to have its graduation ceremony June 26, but those plans were scuttled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So the grad celebration will be delivered through a video, which they will put on a thumb drive and present to students through the mail.
“On the video we will be recognizing all of our 37 graduates, along with the photos in their grad cap and gown,” said principal Ryan Nichols. “We have asked for a small video to be sent in of them in their grad dress or their tux or their suit. If not, something casual to recognize their contributions to our communities."
The video for each student is about one minute, and the school is in the process of putting it all together.
The videos will also have Nichols’ address, a speech from the valedictorian and a recognition of scholarship winners.
Nichols hopes to have the video on the thumb drive and delivered to the grads during the week of June 22, so that they have it before the original grad date. The thumb drive will be part of a package that includes the students’ high school diploma and a few other items.
The school has also purchased banners that measure 24 inches by 36 inches. They will be hung on Main Street in Carnduff to recognize the graduates.
“The banner is a photo of the graduate in their grad cap and gown photo, with their name on the top, and then underneath it says CEC 2020, recognizing the year that they graduate. And then they’re alphabetically from the start of our main street, all the way down to the street that goes towards our school.”
Nichols has been the principal for the Carnduff Education Complex since it opened in 2004, and has known most of the graduates since they started kindergarten.
“This has been an excellent group of graduates,” said Nichols. “They’ve had good years at our school, and we’re looking forward to seeing their future endeavours and how successful they’ll be in them, and we know they’ll be very successful.”
Whether they’re entering the workforce or attending a university or another post-secondary institution, he looks forward to what they will accomplish.
The graduates and their families have handled the past three months well. They have made the most of a situation that is difficult and unprecedented, he said.
The CEC is a pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 school that has 343 students, and draws from Gainsborough and Carievale, along with some students from the Storthoaks and Alida areas, depending on the boundaries for those two communities.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic reaching Saskatchewan, the school had enjoyed another excellent year, he said. They had a lot of activities, and they were nicely into the spring semester when it came to a halt for in-person classes.
“Our extracurriculars had been very successful with different events,” said Nichols.
The Grade 4 to 9 students had an enjoyable ski trip earlier in the year, and they had a wonderful Christmas concert in December. Lots of programs at the school had wrapped up for the school year, but they had more planned for the spring.
The students were engaged in their academics, and pushing forward to the end of the school year.
