Students missing out on major milestones,
From postponed proms to cancelled athletic events, shutdown has taken its toll
Instead of training for track six days a week, Micaiah Ellis runs five to 10 kilometres several times a week along the streets of his Scarborough neighbourhood.
Instead of being outdoors with his club, he now works out virtually from home, with his coach.
And instead of competing this month at Birchmount Stadium for Toronto school board city and regional meets, the 15-yearold and his dad run the hills beside it.
He’d hoped to again qualify for OFSAA, the Ontario high school provincial competition, after placing third in the 800metre race and fourth in 400 metres there last June.
“It’s hard because it’s something I was looking forward to,” said Ellis, a Grade 10 student at Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute. “Last year, when I competed at OFSAA, I did well, but I wanted to do better. I was thinking this year was my chance to do better.” From cancelled athletic events to postponed proms and grads, students are missing out on major milestones as life remains on lockdown — events they know can’t be held because of the health risks, but the loss of which they feel just the same.
The uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll, added Ellis, who typically competes around the country and the U.S. during track season.
Ellis said he would not feel comfortable competing now. “I just think the time’s not right yet,” he said. “It’s not safe enough; we should wait longer.” When schools were shut down in Ontario just after March Break, along with classes went sports, in-person music lessons and dance performances, even the chance to hang out with friends. School trips were cancelled. Ellis had been looking forward to 10 days in Europe, but the tour was called off at the last minute because of the outbreak.
Last week, Education Minister Stephen Lecce urged boards to reschedule graduations and proms so students and families can still celebrate the achievement, even if they are held in the fall, or whenever it is safe to do so.
“Everything is up in the air,” said Grade 12 student Taylor Dallin, who attends Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in the Toronto Catholic board. “I know the school board is talking about doing fall commencements, but again nothing is concrete” because the situation is still so uncertain.
“It has left graduating students in an awkward and unfortunate situation … Everyone is honestly super upset about the way things have turned out, but we understand that everyone is making the best of the situation.”
Dallin will be attending Yale University this fall and worries about not having time with her high school friends before she leaves for the U.S.
“It’s really sad and strange navigating it all,” she said. “Trying to go about daily life, trying to complete our assignments while we have this looming thought in our minds that we aren’t going to have the celebrations we always thought we’d have, that we deserve.”
In the meantime, the Halton public board has arranged a virtual prom for June 11, complete with a DJ. And a handful of schools in the province have arranged for signs to be put up at school or on students’ front lawns to help boost spirits.
Sally Meseret, president of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, said she’s “hearing a lot of disappointment” about cancelled commencements.
“People look forward to these things,” said the Grade 12 Whitby student. “Students are cognizant of the situation, but still … there’s a sense of sadness.”
Allyson Harrison, clinical director at the regional psychological/psycho-educational assessment centre at Queen’s University, said Grade 12 students, in particular, are “coping with lots of changes because of COVID-19, over and above the worries about where they are going to go next year, which offer they are going to accept. These are all big stresses for them.”
She said graduating students also can’t participate in end-ofyear performances or athletic competitions, and this was the “last time they were going to be able to do something like that” before leaving school.
But Harrison said family and friends should not “try to rush in and fix this for them.”
“Appreciate and acknowledge that this really sucks, this is really tough for you,” she said, and don’t try “to make this seem like a wonderful situation. There is the potential for them to build some resiliency and have a yardstick for future distress.”
She said families can honour achievements by holding virtual celebrations online, and arrange for friends or coaches to say “a few words about how important that student was to them … lots of times we don’t get the chance to tell people how much we thought of them.”
For Sarah Groh’s18th birthday in April, her family organized friends and neighbours to take part in a walking, and socially distant, “birthday parade” past their home, carrying signs and singing.
“I told my mom, that is out there for one of my best birthdays ever,” said Groh. “There were so many people involved.”
Groh said she is most upset about not having a prom, as she already bought a dress and her boyfriend had planned a “prom-posal.”
“My friends and I are all going our separate ways next year,” Groh said. “The summer is probably going to be gone, too, but we are staying in contact on social media, which is the best we can do right now. It’s definitely very, very sad that we can’t spend this time together.”
For Agincourt Collegiate Institute teacher Debbie Michailidis, Grade 12 is a time when students “want to hold on to every memory … even just hanging out by their lockers and hanging out in their spares.
“They are never going to get that again,” she added. And “they feel bad for even feeling that loss” given what’s going on in the world. “But it’s still real. It’s a loss.”