The Oxbow Prairie Horizons School has found ways to pay tribute to its graduates this year, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented them from having a conventional, in-person graduation ceremony.
The school has had banners created for all of 35 graduates in the community, with individual grad photos of the kids. Those banners have been hanging in the downtown area for about a month.
Once they’re taken down, the students will be able to keep the banners.
“The banners turned out very well. We’ve had a lot of positive comments from the grads and the parents and from the community,” said principal Jason Petlak.
Oxbow resident James Fonstad completed the banners.
Petlak expects this is something that the school will look at doing in future years.
The other initiative is a pre-recorded grad video. There will be a brief biography on each grad, with a description of their future plans, and there will also be photos, including a baby picture, a middle years photo and a grad picture.
The video will also have a brief message from Jennifer Nordin, who is one of the school’s teachers, and several guest speakers, including retired NHL all-star Theoren Fleury, who was born in Oxbow, and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Hayley Wickenheiser of Shaunavon.
“Some of the kids put out requests to different people, if they would be interested in giving a message, and Hayley responded and recorded probably a three or four-minute message for the grads,” said Petlak.
The scholarship recipients will be recognized during the video, and Petlak and valedictorian Raquenna Simonyi-Gindele will deliver short messages. There will also be a candid section featuring a variety of photos of the grads.
People will be able to watch the entire ceremony from beginning to end, or watch certain segments.
“All of that followed the same format of if our grad would have taken place for the ceremony, and put it on a virtual setting for the kids to have as a memento from their graduation year,” Petlak said.
The video is still in the process of being pieced together, but the majority of it has been completed. Petlak hopes it will be around an hour in length once it is finished, so it will be close to the length of the regular ceremony.
Students are expected to be able to pick up the banner and the video in time for the scheduled graduation date on June 29.
While the graduation class didn’t have a theme for this year, Petlak believes perseverance would certainly apply.
He is in his 23rd year serving as a principal in Oxbow, between OPHS and the Oxbow Prairie Heights School, which was a Grade 6-12 school that operated in the town before the current school opened in 2011. He is in his 30th year of educating students in the Oxbow area.
Not only does Petlak know the students well, but he taught many of their parents as well. This year’s graduating class is a wonderful group of kids.
“There’s no doubt that the students are disappointed, the fact that they won’t have the regular graduation ceremony, the in-person graduation ceremony that the school usually has. But we are following the guidelines of the chief medical health officer.”
While they can’t replace the in-person gathering that each graduating class would have had, the school is still trying to make this special, and the kids have adapted well.
“There’s disappointment on their part, but they’re understanding with this situation. It’s obviously a situation that not even people in my generation can say that they’ve gone through,” said Petlak.
The school year at Oxbow Prairie Horizons School was off to a great start prior to COVID-19. The Black Knights senior girls volleyball team won the 3A provincial title in the fall, and kids were enjoying a variety of extracurricular activities until the pandemic struck.
Petlak lauded the kids for how they have adapted to online learning.
“I think a lot of areas at the beginning that were challenges turned out to have a positive learning environment for the kids. Obviously you can’t replace the face to face interaction between students and teachers, but I think both staff and students did their very best in providing the best educational opportunities for the students.”
