Call them signs of success —or maybe posters of professions. Whatever the name, Janet Cripps said E.L. Crossley Secondary School wants to show current students that anything is possible.
Make that “possibEL.”
Cripps, who is program leader of student services at Crossley, said past grads have gone on to excel in a wide variety of fields. That was the reasoning behind creating the first batch of signs back in 2014, not long after Crossley marked its 50th anniversary.
“We thought, You know what, we've really got to highlight some of our outstanding accomplishments.”
For example, Class of 2009 grad Lawson Fulton is a machine learning engineer at Tesla (Motors) Autopilot, working on the company’s autonomous driving program for its vehicles. Another is explorer, author, and public speaker Adam Shoalts.
Closer to home, Louie Butko, a reporter for CHCH-TV is also a Crossley grad, and, even closer, Cripps herself is one.
“Our kids are everywhere, but the key is to try to get them to respond back so I can showcase them,” Cripps said.
Now, 10 years on, Cripps thought it was high time that more grads were highlighted and about 50 new signs, bringing the total on hand to about 80.
“It breaks down the barriers that our Crosley grads are everywhere, regardless of the pathway,” Cripps said. “We have kids that I have some that are directly into the world of work in align with the apprenticeship, some that have gone on to a college-related program and done very well. We're all over the place. We're very equally represented in all pathways.”
And as it turned out tracking down former students was easy, with Cripps making good use of social media – Linkedin in particular – to find them.
“Then I'm able to do my little preamble and say, ‘Here's a Google form,’ and Bob’s your uncle.”
While most got back to her quickly, Cripps said there were some she had to “pester a couple of times” to get them to supply the bio information and photo she needed for the posters.
All the posters include a photo of the former student, their pathway to their current position and a piece of advice for the next group of grads. Then there’s the hashtag — #possibEL — meant to tie everything together for sharing on social media.
Crossley Principal Monika Pries-Klassen called the posters “super inspiring” for showing current students where they could go in the future.
“These are people that once attended the school, that were in the same building as them, that had the same programming as them,” she said. “I love the wide variety of careers that people have chosen. It's not a cookie-cutter school.”
