Prairie South School Division’s Virtual School has been in operation for over 20 years, but this is the first year a class of Grade 12 students has graduated from the program.
Prairie South Virtual School (PSVS) held a Zoom graduation ceremony in early June to celebrate Ciarra Mathieu, Jordynn Gould and Nathaniel Nadeau. A photo montage of the grads as children kicked off the ceremony, followed by O Canada, an introduction of the graduates, the principal’s address, the class speaker’s address and closing remarks.
Mathieu and Nadeau joined PSVS in Grade 10, while Gould joined this year. Mathieu expects to attend the University of Regina to pursue a degree in social work, Nadeau wants to work for a gaming company, while Gould plans to attend the University of Calgary to acquire a degree in psychology.
Of the three graduates, Nadeau was the only one who had never studied in a real school. He was homeschooled until Grade 9 before he decided to study high school online.
“As a student, I found that online school was the best fit for me. I have never been interested in public schooling, and online was a way to grow and learn at my own pace,” he told the Moose Jaw Express by email.
Being an online student allowed Nadeau to work around his schedule and still have the same educational experience of the public system “without the extra baggage.”
While he did experience difficulties with studying completely online — technology, communications, and motivation — he found that all the staff were helpful, especially as he moved between semesters.
“I cannot express in words how grateful I am to have had the experience of online schooling and for all the staff and teachers who helped me along the way,” Nadeau added. “I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in it as an alternative for (the) public system without a doubt.”
Principal Jeff Boulton told the Express that it was fantastic to celebrate the school’s first graduating class, considering in the past, students usually took a couple of classes online to finish their high school diploma.
“But this is (the first time) where we’ve had students that have gone through the Virtual School completely from Grade 10 to 12. They’ve completed all their credits through the Virtual School,” he remarked.
The online graduation ceremony was 14 minutes 29 seconds long, which Boulton acknowledged with a laugh was “short and sweet.” However, this was the school’s first year hosting an online grad ceremony, so he plans to involve more teachers in the future, while there will hopefully be more graduates to celebrate.
“We did have more students that graduated with us, but they chose to go back to their former school with their graduating class,” he said, noting PSVS gave students the option of attending a grad ceremony online or in person.
“And that’s fine. We encourage that to go back and do that. But the students that chose to be here had been involved right through all of high school. So that was neat to see,” he continued.
“We’ll expand on our graduation ceremony in the years to come.”
Boulton has been an educator for 28 years, while he has been the principal of PSVS since its inception in 1998 under the Moose Jaw Public School Division. He explained that students choose to study fully through PSVS for many reasons, whether because they travel with their parents, are high-performance athletes, or live in rural areas and don’t want to take hour-long bus rides.
Roughly 400 students in grades 1 to 12 study through PSVS each semester.
