Sooke-area students petition against virtual grad ceremonies

A petition against plans for virtual grad ceremonies in the Sooke School District is gathering steam, with students saying they would rather wait for a more traditional event, even if it takes months.

Brianna Gruber, a Grade 12 student at Belmont Secondary School, launched the petition a few days ago, and it had reached more than 2,100 signatures by Monday afternoon. The petition followed a notice sent out by superintendent Scott Stinson announcing the intention to have online ceremonies with the help of a video-production company.

Gruber said she is “super disappointed” that students can’t wait for the COVID-19 situation to change and hold an in-person ceremony. The grad class is about 330 students.

“Postponing it, that would be so good,” she said. “Summer, even September.”

An outdoor ceremony, perhaps with small groups spread around the Belmont field, might work, Gruber said.

“You get the experience, but it’s still safe for everybody,” she said. “We can’t have big groups, obviously.”

It would be “a huge letdown” to have a virtual event, said Gruber, who has spent her entire school career in the Sooke district, going from Lakewood Elementary School to Spencer Middle School to Royal Bay Secondary School and finally to Belmont for her senior year. “All the grads that I’ve talked to, they’re all so upset.”

But Stinson said it would be difficult to postpone the ceremony for too long, because restrictions on group events will extend through the summer, which is why several festivals have been cancelled.

“I don’t know if that order is going to be rescinded, even into the fall,” said Stinson, noting bookings for dry grads and dinner dances have also been cancelled.

He said another obstacle to postponing the ceremony is that once the school year is over, the graduates are no longer district students. And not all of them would be able to attend a ceremony at a later date, he said.

“We’ve looked at all kinds of possibilities,” he said. “Believe me, there is nothing I would rather do more than to offer an in-person graduation for our 2020 grads.

“Anything that we do, whether it’s small groups of students staggered over a number of days, becomes problematic for us.”

Gruber pointed to alternatives used in other areas, including a drive-through graduation event staged in Ontario, where students were still able take pictures and receive diplomas from their teachers.

Stinson said such an event would be “a logistical nightmare” to organize, even if the class were broken down.

The Saanich School District is also offering virtual graduation ceremonies, while the Greater Victoria School District is still deciding what to do.