Wednesday June 23, 2021 | LANGFORD, COLWOOD & SOOKE, BC
by Mary P Brooke, Editor | Island Social Trends
Overall, graduates from the high schools in the west shore and Sooke receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships or tuition support from post-secondary institutions (entrance scholarships and bursaries) and the BC Government (through Ministry of Education level awards).
Locally here in the Sooke School District 62 (SD62), each year the local business and non-profit communities, as well as unions, families and individuals, step up to show their support for graduates from this region.
Local contributions by businesses and local organizations and families is something that is not always recognized beyond the realm of the graduates, their families and peers, because (particularly in recent years) grad ceremonies have been increasingly contained (no media coverage or lists of graduates in newspapers, as was the case as recently as 2017).
A few years ago, the SD62 board developed a policy that said they were not to use student information for the benefit of commercial advertisers. Somehow the celebration of grad names and their accomplishments suffered the consequences through a somewhat misconstrued view that it’s for strict monetary gain that year-end student information is published in local media. Businesses and organizations who support these students also miss out on their support being recognized. That newspapers and digital media sell ads to support their operations is an ongoing process — whether for graduation related content or anything else.
Post-secondary institutions will see (through applications from students) and future employers will see (through young adult job resumes and applications) the names of scholarship sponsors.
Funds for these small to mid-size scholarships come directly from businesses or families, as well as being sourced from interest paid on investments (non-profits and larger companies do it that way).
The motivation by businesses, families and organizations to make this sort of commitment is to honour the work of graduates, support young adults on their way into their adult lives, to show where certain industry or memorial interests lie, and to be active in supporting public education.
Local scholarship amounts:
At June 2021, the three main SD62 secondary schools received these approximate amounts as awarded to graduates of the 2020-2021 academic year, from local donors and sponsors, which totals to $283,500:
- Belmont Secondary School (Langford) – $85,000
- Royal Bay Secondary School (Colwood) – $98,000
- Edward Milne Community School / EMCS (Sooke) – $100,500
Schools are particularly proud to interface with their local communities in the scholarship process. The larger schools have staff whose time is partly or fully devoted to management of the scholarship process year-round.
Note that these numbers are different than other larger numbers you might hear — those larger tallies include the post-secondary entrance scholarships and Ministry awards.
Choosing the scholarship recipients:
Recipient selection is guided by career-counselor staff at each of the schools. Criteria include strong academic achievement, participation in their school and community, and specialized interests that line up with particular career areas.
Some scholarships (such as awarded by the CUPE 459 union) are for students with CUPE family members. The Sooke Teachers Association (STA) also awards scholarships.
The COVID season:
This is the second year of high school graduation where the schedules and learning methodology and opportunities for students have been impacted by the public health restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students who graduated in June 2020 had arguably a harsher unexpected impact, in that their academic year started one way and ended very much differently. Students who graduate now in June 2021 have had a full year of what might be called ‘organized disruption’ … at least they knew what their year would entail, and graduation ceremonies and processes were not side-swiped by uncertainty.
====== LINKS:
- BC Provincial Scholarships Program
- Sooke School District 62
- Island Social Trends Journalism Scholarship
===== About the writer:
Island Social Trends Editor Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Cert PR, has covered education news in the south Vancouver Island region since 2008, with a focus on SD62 at the board level since 2014, and also now Cowichan Valley SD79 since 2020. She is the mother of four grown children, all of whom received scholarships when they graduated (SD61, SD62, and SD72), and have established successful careers. This year Mary launched the Island Social Trends Journalism Scholarship as a way to give back, and to further strengthen the role of journalism in modern democratic society.
===== About Island Social Trends:
The now fully digital Island Social Trends news publication began in 2008 as MapleLine Magazine (a quarterly sociological insights colour glossy magazine) which ran through 2010. In 2011, Mary took her journalism platform into the weekly news realm, launching Sooke Voice News in print, which ran to 2014 including digital along the way. During 2014 the print and digital publication expanded and shifted its primary business base to the west shore in Langford under the masthead of West Shore Voice News (with a focus on the PDF edition to subscribers), operating under that name (both print and digital) until COVID hit in March 2020. The publication was re-envisioned as Island Social Trends in August 2020, doing forward entirely digitally and serving a regional south Vancouver Island audience as well as in social media provincially and nationally.
