Regina alternative school graduates 1st class of Grade 12 students in its 53-year history

When Asia Mills-Daniels receives her score 12 sheepskin this month she testament be the number one fellow member of her family to graduate high school and a member of her high school’s first ever Grade 12 graduating class.

“I was very excited. I was really happy to know I could stay here to Grade 12 and stay with the teachers I knew from when I went through a hard time,” Mills-Daniels, 18, said.

Mills-Daniels is one of two Grade 12 students who will graduate from Regina’s Cornwall Alternative School (CAS) June 18, the first graduating class in the school’s 53-year-history.

The school was founded back in 1972 by a group of social workers who wanted to help students who weren’t attending school, often because of poverty, family crisis and addiction issues.

“Any reason you can think of a kid not succeeding in mainstream school, they come to us,” said principal Andrew Irwin-Pasloski.

CAS has small classes, no more than 12 students, and the school’s total enrolment is capped at 60.

At first, only grades seven through nine were offered, with students transferring back to their original school once they aged out of CAS.

“It’s heartbreaking sometimes when you’re teaching a student and they start doing well here … and then suddenly it’s time to shuffle them off to their next school,” said Irwin-Pasloski.

Eventually Cornwall added Grades 10 and 11, but up until this year students had to transfer out to finish their remaining year of high school, often going back to the schools they had originally struggled in.

Mills-Daniels and her classmate Angelina Peigan will be the first two students in the school’s history to graduate with a Grade 12 diploma issued from Cornwall.

“It was so comforting to know I could stay here to Grade 12 and not go to a different school and try to re-start over somewhere else,” Mills-Daniels said.

The school has served as a surrogate family for Mills-Daniels.

She enrolled in April of her grade nine year, just weeks after her mother died. Her first day at Cornwall was her mom’s birthday.

Up until then, Mills-Daniels had barely attended school at Sheldon Williams, choosing instead to skip classes to spend time with her mother. 

“It was a hard patch. But coming here really changed a lot of those hard patches,” she said.

Mills-Daniels said the small classes and individual help at CAS turned her education around.

In Grade 11, she won the SaskTel Indigenous Youth Award of Excellence, recognizing her outstanding leadership.

Her Grade 10 teacher helped her land a job at Safeway. Her Grade 12 teacher paid her application fee to Saskatchewan Polytechnic, where she has applied for a program that she hopes will one day lead to a career in social work.

“This has been my support system for four years and it’s really sad to leave behind,” Mills-Daniels said.

She has lived with her older siblings since her mother died and said they will all be attending her graduation, watching Mills-Daniels in the royal blue grad gown she's chosen to wear while accepting her diploma.

“They’re really excited. I’m the first in my family to graduate,” she said, explaining she’s inspired by her young nieces and nephews and wants to be a role model for them, showing the importance of completing high-school.

“I wanted to do this for them.”

Mills-Daniels and her classmate are also inspiring the upcoming graduating class, including Peigan’s younger sister Sarah, herself in Grade 11 at Cornwall.

Sarah Peigan, 18, said it would have been difficult for her to return back to Thom Collegiate for Grade 12, the school she attended before being referred to CAS.

“As soon as I heard we were getting Grade 12 I was like, “yes, I get to be around all my favourite people, my favourite teachers, I get to learn lots and feel comfortable,” Peigan said.

“I don’t feel the anxiety of going to another school. It’s just so hard transferring to another school.”

Eunice Cameron, CAS board chair, was the school’s principal for 17 years and still returns to fill in when needed. 

She said students attending CAS have been through a lot of crisis in their lives and allowing them to finish out their high-school years at the school will help more of them succeed and earn that Grade 12 diploma.

“They weren’t very successful at their original school were they? And to go back …”

She said it’s a big deal for them to finish out their high school days at Cornwall and she’ll be at the school’s first-ever Grade 12 graduation ceremony.

“Absolutely. With my bells on I am so excited,” Cameron said.

“We’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

Mills-Daniels is both excited and sad to leave the familiar world of Cornwall and the teachers, counsellors, school chef and classmates that have helped her along the way.

But she hopes to return someday, this time as a social worker to help students like herself.

“With the life I grew up in, I would love to help somebody the same way that I wanted to be helped.”

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