Key Messages Date: March 3, 2021 RE: High School Grad for 2020/21 Issue: • RVS established guidelines for high school graduation celebrations based on three potential scenarios of COVID-19 restrictions. Guidelines promote student, family and staff safety, strive for consistency across RVS high schools and continue to recognize the important milestone within our school communities. The following messages are for schools to use in their communications to students, parents and staff until a scenario is confirmed. These can also be used by RVS to respond to inquiries from other stakeholders. Position: • We are excited to celebrate our RVS high school graduands this spring. We do not know yet what this will look like, but we are working hard to find ways to acknowledge our students’ achievements. The safety of our students and staff continues to be our priority and all RVS celebrations will follow government direction at the time. Key Messages: • We are currently working through a few scenarios that would allow recognition of our graduands while following health guidelines and restrictions. • High schools will follow the same RVS graduation ceremony guidelines to provide our students with a similar graduation experience across the district, while providing opportunities for each school to be creative and recognize their unique school community. • We have heard from our RVS families that in-person ceremonies are preferred. Given current Alberta Health Services (AHS) indoor/outdoor social gathering restrictions, in-person ceremonies would not be possible at this time. We will hold off on making a final decision on ceremony format for a little longer to see how the pandemic and restrictions evolve. • The unfortunate reality of the pandemic means we should be prepared for a graduation ceremony that is not what we would have envisioned for our students. • We will work closely with our schools and AHS to protect the safety of our students while recognizing our graduands in whatever format that becomes. • Schools will update families and students as more information becomes available and once a decision has been made on ceremony format and other details specific to that school. Supporting Facts: • There are nine high schools in RVS: Bert Church High School, George McDougall High School, W.H. Croxford High School, Cochrane High School, Bow Valley High School, Chestermere High School, Beiseker Community School, W.G. Murdoch School and Springbank Community High School. Grade 12 students are also enrolled at RVS Online and RVS Community Learning Centres. • There are 1,848 Grade 12 students enrolled in RVS for 2021. • In 2020, RVS schools marked the achievements of graduates – the first cohort to have graduation ceremonies impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic – in a variety of ways ranging from individualized convocations, digital ceremonies, grad-in-a-box drop-offs and graduation parades. .