Dear Class of 2021, Parents and Guardians:

I want to commend you on your perseverance this year as you navigated through the trials and triumphs of your final semester at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Secondary School. This most certainly was not the way you envisioned your last year of high school and yet you have always conducted yourselves as leaders. Your maturity has been on full display as you have demonstrated for the younger Stingers how to care for others by following covid protocols both inside the school and in our community. I commend you for this. I also know that many of you are anxiously awaiting to hear information regarding your graduation in June. Although it is almost impossible to predict the future and difficult to plan during a pandemic, I am very hopeful that we will be able to honour you and your accomplishments in June in a modified format. Please keep in mind we are bound to follow the guidelines of the SMDHU and restrictions that are in place by the province at that time and this will most certainly have an impact on our graduation ceremony. The staff will do their utmost to honour our graduates in some format this June.
The following information pertains to any student who is on schedule to graduate in June of 2021.

Grad Gowns: Graduation gowns are being sold from Monday March 8th until Friday March 12th through Schoolday. Sales will close at midnight on the 12th. This is the ONLY time we will be selling graduation gowns for the class of 2021. Please ensure you purchase your gown now if you wish to have a gown to wear at graduation in June. We cannot order a blue graduation gown for anyone after Friday March 12th. Gowns ordered by Friday March 12th should be delivered to the school by Monday March 29th. We will be in communication with graduates and their parents when they arrive so we can organize distribution of the gowns. Purchase is optional.

Grad Photos: The safety of our students, staff and community are of the utmost importance. There have been 48 cases of Covid in Simcoe county schools since we reopened February 8th and currently 66% of the cases in Simcoe Muskoka are of the variant strain and we have been designated in a grey lockdown zone. It is out of an abundance of caution that I am letting you know that we are not scheduling grad photos on school property this year. Parents and students who would like to have graduation photos taken are encouraged to do so on their own once our lockdown designation has been lifted. Graduation gowns are being sold earlier this year for this reason - so you may use your own personal graduation gown for photos as an added layer of protection.

Graduation Ceremony: Our intention at this time is to have a ceremony for our graduates at the end of June. We have submitted our plan to the board and the health unit is being consulted to ensure we are within the guidelines of the health unit. Please note that circumstances have changed rapidly and are continuously changing. I am very hopeful we will be able to have a graduation ceremony for the class of 2021.

Yours in Catholic Education,

Ann Marie Sheehan

Principal St. Thomas Aquinas