After attending the graduation ceremony at CWDHS Friday night, I felt compelled to write this letter. It was a lovely ceremony,with many awards and accolades. I was appalled when the French Immersion students were not acknowledged for their efforts, beyond a printing in the program handed out. The FI program requires dedication, commitment, sacrifice and perseverance in the face of poor class selection, scheduling conflicts and many other difficulties FI students face during the course of the program. The students who took the Specialist High skills major were acknowledged, to the point of having special sashes for their robes! Where is the support for the FI students? How about public distribution of their certificates, or even saying it alongside their name when the grad is announced? Some acknowledgement of their ability to make it all the way to the end? The fact that only 14 of them made it, when there were approximately 40 of them at one point should speak to the dedication of these students.(actually, only 12 suffered through the entire Ontario program). 5000 hours! That seems like something worth acknowledging at their graduation- the celebration of their high school achievements! . There were many awards, including those based on geographic locations, that were given out. Why couldn’t something celebrating the achievement of these students,beyond their name in the back of the program be done? Even just having them stand in the grad seating area while their names were read out would have been a nice gesture. They have been treated as second class citizens by the board their entire career, so I’m not entirely sure why I’m surprised their high school didn’t make much of their achievement. I’m just very disappointed on behalf of all the FI students.
Kim Blanchard