June 24th, 2020

With only days left in the 2019-2020 school year, our minds turn to celebrating the achievements of our graduating students – from those who are making the transition from Kindergarten to Grade 1, to those transitioning from Grade 8 to 9, all the way to the Grade 12 graduates who are preparing to set out on their next adventure. Although we cannot come together as we usually would to celebrate these accomplishments – together – we are committed to making sure our students know just how proud we are – each and every one.

Graduation is a time of celebration, of goals accomplished, and anticipation of what is to come. While this is not how we anticipated ending our school year, we will still celebrate your achievement, and considering all we have been through together, the sense of accomplishment is more palpable than ever.

We also want to take a moment and express our gratitude, to all our students, for making our schools feel like communities. Thank you for your enthusiasm and excitement and for filling our hallways with laughter and joy. Thank you for making our schools and classrooms welcoming spaces for everyone – even if we are learning at a distance.

To help us say thank you, we invited some of our secondary principals, vice-principals, teachers, guidance counsellors, and coaches to share their wishes for our graduates.

Our Trustees also came together to share their well-wishes for our graduates, and to impart some wisdom as they reflected on what they wished they had known when they graduated themselves.

As our graduates prepare for the next stage of their learning journey, we want you to know that you have so many opportunities ahead of you. Enjoy them and appreciate them. Through all of these experiences, you will continue to learn important lessons. Some lessons will be easy, and some of them will be hard, but each lesson will have a purpose in shaping your future.

We hope that whatever your next challenge may be, that you approach it with the outlook you have learned in the WRDSB: the importance of a being lifelong learner, of contributing to a more inclusive and equitable world, of taking steps to support your well-being and that of others, of knowing that being part of a community and connecting with others matters, with the ability to continue to grow and thrive in whatever you choose.

Congratulations to each and every one of you. May you be happy in life and successful in all your endeavours. We can’t wait to see all that you will accomplish.

How We’re Celebrating Our WRDSB Graduates

Keep your eyes and ears peeled to see how excited we are to celebrate our 2020 graduates across Waterloo Region. From billboards, to buses, to the sides of our secondary schools, we have plastered our congratulations everywhere we can for our students, their families and anyone, really, to see. You’ll also notice our Education Centre is wearing a similar congratulatory banner, visible to all those who drive by.

We aren’t stopping with that, though, as our celebration continues with advertisements in local newspapers and on local radio stations – so be sure to keep an eye, or an ear, out for congratulations to our graduates over the next few weeks.

Be sure to join in on the excitement and celebration by sharing on social media with the hashtag #WRDSBgrad.