SCHOOL BOARD MEETS
Sydney Academy parents want grad event to take place on June 28
See what took place at last night’s meeting of the CBVRSB.
Leonia Anthony is facing a nearly impossible choice if Sydney Academy doesn’t change its graduation ceremony back to its original date.
The Sydney mother’s sons are graduating this year, but from different high schools. Kristan goes to Sydney Academy while his twin brother Brandon, who has autism, is a Grade 12 French immersion student at Riverview in Coxheath.
Although she’d been looking forward to seeing both her children accept their diplomas, she may now have to choose after Sydney Academy changed its graduation from June 28 to June 29 — the same day as Riverview’s.
“I want to go to both of their graduations,” said Anthony, one of several parents of Sydney Academy students who made emotional pleas to the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board about the date switch at its monthly meeting Monday night.
“Oh my God, they’ve worked so hard. Brandon with his autism — they thought he was going to have to go to a learning centre — and look at him now: he’s graduating, he’s going to be bilingual, and you’re telling me that I have to choose which one I have to go to? That’s just terrible.”
On a night when board superintendent Beth MacIsaac earlier praised staff for trying to make school life as normal as possible following a bitter contract dispute between teachers and the province, John MacDonald, whose daughter is graduating this year, told the board the situation is “anything but normal” at Sydney Academy.
He said not only was the graduation date changed, the time is now set for 9 a.m., instead of the usual evening time, something he says “trivializes” a major milestone in a person’s life. He said principal Kevin Deveaux told a school advisory committee that the reason for the change is because not enough teachers are willing to volunteer their time outside of school hours.
“The idea that Mr. Deveaux says that we can’t get enough teachers to volunteer one
evening of their life to go and see the students they supposedly care for graduate, either he hasn’t asked the question, or it hasn’t been put to teachers in the correct form,” he said, “because if they really are concerned and care for the students, they should be able to give up one evening to come to a graduation.”
Michelle Aucoin is one of five mothers who formed the Blue and White Parents Safe GradProm Committee to make sure those events still took place if teachers went on strike.
She said because the safe grad and prom are no longer sanctioned by the school — “No, there’s not a Sydney Academy safe grad and prom but there is a Blue and White safe grad and prom” — Deveaux won’t inform students about the parent-organized events.
She also told the board that the committee no longer has access to a list of graduates so they can make sure every student has a chance to attend.
“We’re still encountering parents all the time who have no idea that there’s going to be a prom and safe grad,“she said.
“So we’re heartbroken and we’re very, very concerned that we’ll miss just one kid.”
Like Leonia Anthony, Aucoin’s son also has a tough decision to make if graduation is held June 29. That’s the same day the future music student at Mount Allison University is supposed to begin performing in the Royal Nova Scotia International
Tattoo.
“He’s made his decision. If he has to graduate on June 29, he will not cross the stage,” she said before presenting the board with a petition signed by more than 200 parents and students in less than a day asking for the graduation to be held June 28.
“I understand that the teachers can’t be pressured into providing an evening graduation, but we will step up and help in any capacity. I know that I’m not going to rest. It will break my heart not to see my own child cross the stage on June 28.”
There is a chance the date could change.
When reached at home Monday night, Deveaux said he is meeting with school board officials today to discuss the June 29 graduation date, which he said was requested by his staff but is not yet official.
“I wouldn’t want to comment any further. I want to hear from central office what they have to say. We made a request to do it in the day and I don’t know where we are yet,” he said.
When asked if it could be changed back to the original date he replied: “If the province allows us to do it in the day on the 28th, then yes it could.”
Anthony, meanwhile, said she has no idea what she’ll do if the date isn’t changed.
“Which graduation will I go to? Kristan said, ‘Mom, you can skip mine and go to Brandon’s.’ And where Brandon has autism, he is very stressed out right now because of everything. He thinks he’s taking away from his brother, so he doesn’t even want to go. I don’t think this should be put on them.”