Academic Successes
We have had an outstanding wind up to this school year. On May 31, 2019, we celebrated the academic and personal accomplishments of an amazing group of grade 12 students at the annual JGD Graduation Ceremonies. What a great celebration honoring these students. Congratulations to all of our IB students who successfully wrote their external International Baccalaureate Exams in May. We also celebrated our students’ academic achievements during our Annual Spring Awards on June 3rd in which 40% of our students received honors in their course work. In addition we celebrated the accomplishments of students in the Fine and Performing Arts with a number of events. What an fantastic year these students have had performing and sharing their talents with our school community. These celebrations helped to reinforce what an outstanding student population we have here at John G. Diefenbaker. We are so proud of all our students accomplishments this year!
Extracurricular Successes
Over 30 students and a few staff spent 11 days experiencing Italy. The stories and photos are worth the four days they missed of classes – we call it the international classroom and they were all excellent learners. Mr. Wilberg who was on the trip humbly mentioned that he spoke Italian which was an absolute asset on the trip for the students. He is retiring after an illustrious career in the CBE and at Diefenbaker and we wish him all the best!
Our spring athletic teams worked incredibly hard and made us proud with their successes and even their almost successes! Our Girls’ Rugby Team brought home the City Championship! Congratulations! We were able to celebrate all our outstanding athletes at the annual Night of the Chiefs! The coaches also took a moment to honour our Diefenbaker Chief, Coach Diane Hilko, who is retiring this June! We wish her congratulations on her incredibly impactful career.
Wind-up of 2018-2019
We are very fortunate to have such a caring, respectful and engaged community! Just yesterday, we completed the final diploma exam and the students in Physics and Science 30 cheered. For our Class of 2019, we wish them every success in their next endeavours and thank them for the three years they helped to enrich our learning community. We appreciate our Grade 10 and 11 students as well who finished all their exams last Friday and began their summer holidays one week earlier! We are looking forward to welcoming our new Diefenbaker Chiefs in the fall.
We would like to extend our thanks to our Area Director Darlene Unruh, who will be leaving us to move to Area 6. At this time we welcome Chris Meaden and Teresa Martins, who will be our new Education Directors for Area 2.
On behalf of the entire staff at John G. Diefenbaker we wish you and your family a restful and revitalizing summer break. Our school will be closed to the public from Friday June 28, 2019 at 4:00 PM until Wednesday August 21, 2019 at 1:00 PM.
Although the school will be closed for the summer; you can reach us by emailing johngdiefenbaker@cbe.ab.ca or leave a phone message at 403-274-2240 ext. 0. Messages will be checked periodically throughout the summer.
We look forward to seeing you again in the fall. All the best to our Diefenbaker Family. Have a great summer Diefenbaker Chiefs!!
Mike Bester, Principal
