Callie is graduating from high school this year. <Insert comment about how time flies.> Grade 11 was not a lot of fun with Chemistry and PE but grade 12 seemed like a breeze in comparison. She did excellent in all of her classes with a highlight of weight training where she got 100%. It sounds like if you showed up to that one you were doing well compared to the rest of the kids. I'm proud to say she was excepted to SFU to pursue a career in teaching. For SFU you submit your expected grades for grade 12 and they judge you on that. I was mildly worried about English as it was tracking lower but she significantly increased her mid-term grade and hit her goal with eze.
I had expected it to be a costly year but I was still amazed at the number of things that came up. There was a number of fund raisers we contributed to, a grad dress, a winter formal dress, tickets to various things, grad clothes, limos, hair, makeup, dress fittings and more. I suspect that some kids didn't show up to things just because they couldn't afford it which is a shame. Kerry was on the grad committee and they raised money for their dry grad but a lot of the other items were left up to parents to cover. Carter will be slightly cheaper just because he's a boy but still won't be cheap. Score another one for the female tax. I'm not even going to try to guess at the actual cost. I suppose it was worth it because she did really seem to enjoy all the events.
One of the unexpected events for me was the 'Winter Formal'. When I went to high school there seemed to be at least a few dances every year. Callie's high school only seemed to focus on dances for the graduation year and I'm sure covid impacted some things as well. The Winter Formal happened before Christmas and Callie said she went easy on us for the dress and didn't have anyone do her hair and makeup. Feeling blessed.
Full on grad activities got rolling with the grad dinner in June. There was an option for parents to come which was kind of useless. The kids came on their own via limo and we drove to the golf course on our own. We sat around until they were ready to sit down for dinner at which point we listened to a few speeches from the back of the room and then left. Cost was $5 per parent. I t think things would have been better if they let us focus on getting pictures of everyone. We got a few but everyone sat down for dinner before we had a chance to get any with her friends. I did get a watered down lemonade.
After grad dinner the kids got bussed back to the school for their dry grad. Attendance was up from previous years which worked out well for the fund raising committee. They fund raised based on a certain number of kids so every kid above that was extra money to spend. They ended up giving the kids all a gift card. The grad was casino themed and Kerry volunteered for the event. She only really had to take tickets but ended up staying until 5:00 in the morning with the kids. Luckily it was a professional development day the next day which is good for the kids but Kerry still had to go to school. She managed to make it in to work.
We had a family bbq after grad dinner weekend, prompted by Melissa who had arranged something similarly elaborate for her son and niece. She sent down the candy bar signs so we definitely had to do the same for Callie. Attendance was family and close friends including Kennedy who had technically finished school in December but had come back from university to attend the grad ceremonies.
We finished the year off at the Bell Centre with the graduation ceremony. I was very glad they had it there as they have nicer seats. I could not have sanded sitting through 300+ kids walking across the stage if we had to be on hard bleachers. The ceremony was a few speeches by administration, the valedictorian and then each kid had a short paragraph read as they walked across the state. They encouraged minimal cheating but didn't hold back their diploma if we did cheer. The main reason was to avoid overlap with cheering and the next kids description.
Great work Callie!
Grad Pictures
Spring Formal
Dress Shopping
Grad Dinner
Dry Grad
Grad Ceremony
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