Class of 2022 excited for first full in-person graduation since pandemic

After two years of cancelled, postponed and alternative online graduations, Saskatchewan high school students aren’t reserving their excitement about celebrating the milestone in person once again.

The class of 2022 will be the first class in two years to celebrate in a manner reminiscent of pre-March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first sent Saskatchewan students online.

“When the pandemic first started, I wasn’t even thinking about whether this was going to affect my grad,” said Grade 12 Holy Cross High School student Natalie Dumonceaux.

Tom Hickey had only been a principal at the Saskatoon high school for just over two months when the pandemic first hit. He said he had a nice start in the job before the school quickly devolved into following world news as the virus began to make its way into Canada.

The first cancellations were in-person classes and some school trips to Europe. That kicked off “a time of a lot of change and uncertainty” filled with “good, creative things” to make the most of the pandemic, according to Hickey.

Now, he said the pandemic may still be with us, but restrictions in Saskatchewan are not.

“Definitely we’re excited to be doing some extracurriculars and graduation,” Hickey shared. “(The school) is again alive with activity and a really exciting place to be.”

Holy Cross has been planning for an in-person graduation ceremony and celebrations since the beginning of the school year. Hickey shared the plans were made with some trepidation, knowing plans since 2020 have been made to be changed.

When the Omicron variant first hit in January and many staff and students were ill and missing classes, Hickey said things were very much up in the air again.

“Truthfully, we were concerned about not just graduation but … finishing the year in a regular way,” he said.

“I guess I’ve been so used to having hope for things and things not turning out the way I’d hoped.”

There have been more than a few uncertain moments for Dumonceaux, who was in Grade 10 when the pandemic first hit. She’s now part of the student team planning graduation celebrations for her class.

Dumonceaux said it feels great to know her graduation will be going ahead with the chance for her friends and family to see her cross the stage and receive her diploma all in the same place.

The last normal in-person graduation ceremonies happened in 2019. Hickey said he’s proud of how the school has handled final celebrations of its 2020 and 2021 graduating classes and many people contributed to helping make things go smoothly.

“We did the best we could with the restrictions that were on at the time and … I think we honoured them quite well,” Hickey said. “I’m just really proud of everybody for keeping the safety of our students and mind and making good decisions.”

Most of Dumonceaux’s high school experience has been up in the air.

From learning to navigate the technology of online learning — she admits she and many of her friends are not “technologically inclined” — to only seeing half of her peers at a time because of alternating classroom learning in her Grade 11 year, Dumonceaux said it’s an incredible feeling to have survived “this mess together” and be nearing the finish.

“I think it has honestly brought us closer together as a grade because now in Grade 12 we finally get to see each other again …,” she said. “It’s like a year-long family reunion.”

The many obstacles have made it “that much sweeter” for her class’s return to in-person learning for its senior year.

Holy Cross’s graduation ceremonies will take place on June 28 in the morning, with their banquet and aftergrad activities to follow that evening.

“You can just feel it in the air,” Hickey said.

With more than half the school having never experienced a “typical” school year at Holy Cross, Hickey is proud of the students, staff and school leaders who have spearheaded planning activities and passing on their skills to help equip next year’s graduating class.

Dumonceaux has been part of the student representative council, acting as co-president and helping get next year’s Grade 12 students ready to plan events — something Dumonceaux has had to learn how to do herself in addition to preparing others.

She has no idea what to expect with how she’ll feel about graduation, though she knows her experience won’t quite be what she anticipated it would be.

“I don’t think you ever know what it’s going to feel like to graduate, let alone when you go through high school in a pandemic,” she said.

For Hickey, the feeling of emerging from a pandemic is hard to describe. He said the past two years have held some of the most challenging moments of his career but also some of the most rewarding.

“I look back with all the craziness of this time and … I’m filled with pride,” he shared, adding this first graduation — his first in-person graduation as a principal too — feels like a milestone achievement.

“It feels surreal … I cannot believe that I will be done high school because I feel like I only had half of my high school experience,” Dumonceaux said.

“I lost a lot of things that I would have got to experience in the last two years.”

That hasn’t dampened the optimism carrying Dumonceaux to the end of June.

“Getting to experience everything for the last time in Grade 12 is even better when you haven’t done it in two years,” she said.

Dumonceaux has a piece of COVID-learned advice to offer on behalf of her graduating class: Learn to adapt.

It’s something the Class of 2022 has become experts in.

“Do everything that the world throws at us, and just (work at) taking it and making the best out if it,” Dumonceaux said with a smile.