As we undergo these unprecedented times, with so many activities myself and others counted on for an escape being stripped away, we as a collective were counting on Rocky View School district to award us with a celebration that we have earned. Instead of postponing the day we have been looking forward to for nearly 12 years (more than three quarters of our lives), they have chosen to take an easier and far less demanding route – a “virtual graduation.” How can a system that demands so much from young adults be allowed to get away with such a disgrace?
This is a form of hypocrisy we should expect from a corrupt politician but not from our own school district – the same place we have been told for years had our backs, the people who are creating the future generation. I am ashamed to be a part of a system that vowed to guide us in the right direction. The only direction I have learned from this decision is that dictatorship always fails. If such decisions are to continue happening, our future generations will continue to have a fire burning inside them for these people that rule over them. To simply state it; you have thousands of graduating students that will never have a chance to live out that memory of walking across that stage and pivoting into shaping who they will be for the rest of their lives, the same way that I’m sure you have and, I can imagine, every single person you know.
My voice is quiet. My school district ignores the cries of my fellow students. These cries are also disregarded by the administration in my own school. We are being silenced by the very people who told us to “stand up for what you believe in.” This selfish decision needs to become a priority; for all of the students who have been silenced, all of the students with sick parents, the grandparents who are holding on to see their legacy carried on by their own DNA.
Calumn Hickerson
Sagewood Gardens
