Grad parade cancelled

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Strathmore’s grad parade has been cancelled.

The event was cancelled under orders from Alberta Health Services, said Kimberly Proust, who heads the Parent Parade Planning Committee.

The plan was to have a vehicle parade through town to celebrate the graduates, because customary grad events, such as “wearing the dresses and the suits, walking across the stage and having everyone celebrate them,” were sidelined by the response to COVID-19, said Proust. Everyone was to be in enclosed-cab vehicles, the Strathmore RCMP was going to provide escort and the fire department was to “bring up the rear,” she said.

The event evolved such that graduating students from Strathmore secondary schools were planning to participate, including Strathmore High School, Holy Cross Collegiate, Golden Hills Learning Academy and the Strathmore Storefront School, said Proust.

AHS was involved throughout the event planning, said Proust. “We had to have AHS approve the route, the date, the time, all of our plans – we had massive safety plans in motion.”

But 10 minutes before an event meeting on Friday, the Town of Strathmore received an email saying AHS was shutting the event down because the province came out with new rules pertaining to graduation ceremonies.

“That in turn, in my opinion, kicked us out, and put more of the onus on the schools,” said Proust.

The town was “absolutely incredible” with helping to plan the parade, she added. “If they did not give us the go-ahead, we would not have been able to do it anyway.”

The town also offered to livestream the event, so anyone could watch the parade from the comfort of their own home.

Despite planning for participant safety and making the graduates sign waivers saying they would stay in the cars, concerns about the event remained. The biggest issue, said Proust, was that the organizers could not control how many people were along the parade route.

“Even if we had the livestream, at the end of the day, we just did not have that control,” she said. “There would possibly be more than 50 people in a space,” meaning the parade might exceed the limit for outdoor gatherings that is still in effect.

Proust accepts the decision by AHS to cancel the event.

“The province has said that is the rule,” she said. “Not everybody likes it, but it is what it is.

“Until this pandemic slows down, we have to follow the rules in order to stay safe.”

The ongoing cancellation of graduation events may be tough on students.

“Most of them just so desperately want to have their right of passage,” said Proust. “These kids have worked so hard to get to the end of their high school career – now it’s just cut short.”