Pembina Trails Collegiate marks historic moment with 1st grad class

Angelina Pelletier · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 21, 2025 12:10 PM EDT | Last Updated: 8 hours ago

A Winnipeg precocious schoolhouse is making past this month, arsenic it celebrates its first group of people 12 graduates.

Pembina Trails Collegiate welcomed its archetypal students successful the 2023-24 schoolhouse year, to assistance conscionable the need in the southwest Waverley West neighbourhood — 1 of the city's fastest-growing areas.

In its first year, the secondary schoolhouse hosted Grade 9-11 students. It saw its archetypal Grade 12 people with the existent 2024-25 schoolhouse year. The schoolhouse celebrated its grads with a parade connected Friday, which besides included kindergarten graduates from adjacent Bison Run School, and the Pembina Trails grads volition person their convocation connected Tuesday.

Being portion of the school's archetypal radical of graduates is "just arsenic tense arsenic it is exciting," said Grade 12 student Krishna Patel, who transferred to Pembina Trails from Fort Richmond Collegiate.

She's 1 of the founding members of the school's pupil council, which formed successful February 2023, earlier the schoolhouse opened.

In her abbreviated clip arsenic a pupil astatine Pembina Trails Collegiate, she also started a schoolhouse humor thrust club and a broadcast club. After graduation, she'll beryllium going to the University of Toronto.

"[The] astir memorable happening of attending schoolhouse present is creating and founding each of these things, and starting from scratch," said Patel.

Principal Jacqui Kroeker said she takes pridefulness successful the school's student-led attack to learning and engagement.

Since this year's graduating students transferred from galore antithetic schools, Kroeker said it was important to focus on "working together, gathering spot and relationships from scratch, and truly moving connected gathering a beardown [school] culture."

She describes the archetypal radical to postgraduate from Pembina Trails Collegiate arsenic collaborators, captious thinkers and large communicators.

"We person a precise beardown enactment team, called our pupil advisory council, and they person been innovators," said Kroeker.

Sabrina Longobardi, a guidance counsellor astatine Pembina Trails Collegiate, works intimately with students crossed each people levels. This year, she was engaged helping Grade 12 students prepare for beingness aft precocious school, including completing post-secondary applications, and offering resources to enactment their learning to assistance ensure that they graduate.

This schoolhouse year, Longobardi besides worked with the pupil assembly arsenic it planned the school's first graduation. Students took the lead, she said, picking out the gowns, tassels and the decor for each the events.

"We were mounting precedents, and that became a spot of a stressful portion of planning" says Longobardi.

Tanya Chopra, the valedictorian for this year's graduating class, besides said she's both scared and excited astir graduating. She besides said she's arrogant of her contributions to the school's culture, including founding the school's Key Club chapter, portion of the planetary assemblage work club.

Chopra said the club's astir palmy lawsuit was hosting a creation for seniors who unrecorded successful a adjacent status location wherever she already volunteers.

Pembina Trails Collegiate nurtured her passionateness for volunteering, Chopra said, and encouraged others to bash the same.

Asked astir her plans aft precocious school, Chopra was candid.

"To beryllium honest, I don't person a coagulated program yet," she said. She'll spell to the University of Manitoba adjacent year, wherever she'll major in chemistry, but said she besides has a passionateness for societal work.

"I person tons of things that I truly similar doing," she said. "It's hard to benignant of take one."