Virtual scholar at the head of 2024 class

Toronto student with 99.7% average graduated from online high school

- JANET HURLEY

Every summer, Toronto's public and Catholic school boards trot out their graduating top scholars, bringing a bit of academic glory to each student's alma mater. East York Collegiate Institute, Bishop Allen Academy, Bloor Collegiate Institute and Father John Redmond Catholic Secondary are regularly some of the incubators for the city's smartest kids.

But for the Class of 2024, one high- achieving member graduated from a place some may not even realize still exists: Virtual Secondary School.

Emma Brijlall Nakahara, with her 99.7 per cent average, is the Toronto public board's first top student from the school born out of the pandemic.

Nakahara completed her Grade 12 year with results that sandwiched her by mere decimal points between Jarvis Collegiate Institute's Elina Tabrizi (99.8 per cent) and Northview Heights Secondary School's Arisha Mahey (99.6 percent). Toronto Catholic District School Board, which names scholars for every ward, recognized 15 students including Father John Redmond Catholic Secondary School's Lucas Hall and Amanda Luca, who both scored 100 per cent.

From a peak enrolment of 18,000 -not counting pandemic-era shutdowns when every child was learning remotely there are more than 1,300 Toronto public high school students (out of 74,000) who are still learning fully online.

Just under 1,000 elementary stu dents continue to do so, too.

Nakahara, who as a youngster attended Montessori and was also homeschooled by her teacher mom, is unusually sensitive to low blood sugar. The 17-year-old needs to eat every one to two hours, and just snacking on an apple isn't enough; she needs a meal that might include chicken. Without that sustenance, she says, she has a harder time concentrating.