Sudbury Catholic District School Board

Sudbury Catholic Student Helping Others to “See the Ability”

It all started with a photo submission for a calendar. Little did Lisa Wright know that this one simple act would have her daughter Holly’s smiling face on 700 billboards across the country. Holly is a twelve year old girl who attends Pius XII Catholic Secondary School, and who happens to have Down syndrome.
Each year, Lisa liked to submit a photo of Holly to the Canadian Down Syndrome Society for their yearly calendar publication. A photo taken by her brother-in-law the previous summer depicted Holly kayaking at their camp on Fairbank Lake. Holly had just learned to kayak and the photo was captured on her very first attempt. Lisa describes Holly as very much like girls her age – loves music, movies, all of today’s “pop stars” and young actors. Holly also enjoys numerous activities – especially the ones that have to do with water. After seeing Holly’s love of the water in the kayak, captured in the picture, Lisa knew that this was the one she wanted to submit. “Shocked” is the word Lisa used when she received the phone call from the Down Syndrome Association saying not only was she selected, Holly was going to be the poster girl for their national campaign – involving a full page ad in the Globe and Mail, as well a the hundreds of billboards across Canada. “We are so proud of Holly and also quite excited – she is quite the gal,” Wright said. “She is certainly more alike children her age than she is different, and that is the message we need to get out to the public. People are encouraged to ‘see the ability’”. When asked about how she felt about all of the attention and seeing herself in the ads, Holly smiled and said that it makes her happy and makes her smile more.

Lisa takes part in the Canadian Down Syndrome Buddy Walk each year, and, as it is Down syndrome Awareness week November 1-7, the Buddy Walk will be taking place on Sunday, November 6, beginning at 11:00 at Lockerby Composite School. The walk is to raise awareness of the capabilities of people with Down Syndrome. All are encouraged to attend!

Parents Honoured at Annual Commissioning Celebration

Once again, parents, principals, vice-principals, teachers and other Sudbury Catholic staff gathered together as a Catholic community to take part in the annual Regional Catholic Parent Involvement Commissioning celebration. On October 25, 2011, the group gathered for a short prayer service, and each school was presented with a poster – with an anti-bullying message – comprised of thousands of pictures of Sudbury Catholic students, to take back to their schools. After the presentation of the poster, the parent council members were blessed and the entire group gathered for some refreshments and comradery. “It is such a lovely evening for staff and parents to come together,” stated Catherine McCullough, Director of Education for Sudbury Catholic. “We are so blessed to have such wonderful and involved parents. Parent involvement is so key in the success of our students and, recognizing this, we feel very strongly that we must honour them, and their important role in student learning.”

Representing and Honouring Culture

On Friday, October 28th, Maclean’s 2011 Universtiy Rankings hit newstands. On that same day, Kelly Nootchtai, St Benedict’s Class of 2009, visited a Native Studies class at St. Charles College to talk about the importance of making good choices and Aboriginal Education. This is significant because Kelly is on the cover of this issue. She is a third year Native Studies and Philosophy student at Laurentian University and understands the value of a good education. She talks fondly of her years in elementary school taking Ojibwe classes at St James. Kelly looked forward to continuing the language program at the secondary level but, it wasn’t until her graduating year that St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School was able to offer any Native Studies programming. Kelly talked about how lucky the students are to have Native Studies as an option and having great teachers like St. Charles College teacher Jennifer Petahtegoose. Both Kelly and Ms. Petahtegoose are members of Atikameksheng Anishinawbek (formerly Whitefish Lake First Nation near Naughton). Students listening to Kelly’s message were inspired and felt a sense of cultural pride. Ms. Petahtegoose stated “As a community member we are very proud of Kelly’s accomplishments and as an Anishinaabe educator I am always looking for positive First Nation, Metis and Inuit role models. Kelly has overcome obstacles to get where she is today and we are proud that she is one of our graduates and can share her story to inspire those coming up behind her.” After the talk, Kelly signed covers of the magazine and Ms Petahtegoose served homemade cookies and cedar tea.

Marymount Academy Annual Canned Food Drive

This past month, Marymount Academy kicked off its Annual Canned Food Drive for the Sudbury Food Bank. Every year Marymount has great success with this fundraiser, usually raising approximately 10,000 cans. The organizers of this event, the MC3 (Marymount Catholic Charities Council) set a goal of 5,000 cans for the school to collect. This year, the Marymount girls went above and beyond what was expected. They spent countless hours going door-to-door can food collecting, and all of their hard work paid off. One grade 7 student, Brittany Critch, single handedly collected 697 cans on her own! By the final day of the canned food drive on October 21st, the Marymount Regals not only exceeded their goals of 5,000 cans, but beat the school record collecting over 13,300 cans! All of the collected food has been donated to the Sudbury Food Bank. This was a very successful fundraiser for a wonderful cause, and was a great way to kick off a year full of fundraising and charitable events.

By: Shannon Reed, MC3 President

St. Anne Junior-Intermediate Students Practice “Test Driving” For The Future

Recently, Mr. Thomson’s Grade 6/7 class from St. Anne Catholic School in Hanmer participated in a culminating Science activity where they put together their knowledge of energy, motion, force and structures to build Spool Racers. The Sudbury Catholic School Racers were put through a thorough testing phase that included speed racing, distance endurance and design analysis. These budding Junior/Intermediate Scientists did a great job in designing some very unique racers while at the same time developing scientific skills of perseverance and creativity. Who knows? One day these young creators may be the next inventors for such events as the Molson Indy, the Indy 500, and the Grand Prix. We will wait to see. Well done Angels!

“Trick or Tree”

This fall the teachers and students of St. David Catholic School have embarked on a challenge to make their school a healtheir place.  One of the “green” initiatives they have initiated is to plant almost 2000 saplings in a local area that suffers from deforestation. The grade 5, 6 and 8 classes and their teachers learned from local biologist, Franco Mariotti, that “if one class plants trees, we have created a new habitat.  If everyone in the school plants a tree then we have created an ecosystem”. 

“This is a great example of authentic learning”, teacher Jennifer Gran stated, “we are excited that our students have the opportunity to take classroom learning into the real world and have fun while making our community a healtheir place”.  Not only are the students planting saplings in the community, they all were given a sapling to take home and plant with their parents and families.

St. Charles Elementary Kicks Off Dearness Conservation

Students at St. Charles Elementary Catholic School gathered in the gymnasium on October 14, 2011 in a traditional way for their Dearness Conservation kickoff. Students and staff support, promote and practice programs that foster stewardship of the earth which are integrated with the Medicine Wheel teachings, Catholic Graduate Expectations and Virtues of the month.

St. Charles teachers and students were assigned a Direction and asked to dress in the colour corresponding in the Medicine Wheel (East-yellow, South-red, West-black and North-white). They were called down to the gym by Direction starting with the East and ending in the North. Students wrapped around the gym forming a human Medicine Wheel as they sat attentively and listened to the teachings of Elder, Vince Pawis. Following the teachings, Gr. 5 teacher, Ms. Cormier explained the importance of the Dearness Conservation Program and how each student is responsible for making a commitment to a healtheir Mother Earth.

The students are excited to learn about their role as stewards of the earth and how they can make a difference.

St. Paul Gives Thanks!

St. Paul the Apostle School Community gathered to give thanks to God for all His wonderful gifts on Friday October 7th. The staff students and special guests met in the gym to sing, pray and listen together. Everyone was encouraged to enjoy family, friends and food together this weekend and to remember to give God thanks by attending Mass at their home parishes. All sang: “Alleluia Praise the Lord.” Pictured is Mrs. Rossella Bagnato the school’s superintendent, Mrs. Henry the principal and several students.

Thank You Teacher!

Since 1994, World Teachers’ Day is celebrated on October 5. It is a day to celebrate the profession and to promote international standards for the teaching profession. The theme for this year is : Teachers for gender equality. Today, Daven Neddo, a Grade 3 student at St. Charles Elementary Catholic school, said thank you to his classroom teacher, Mrs. Harris, by reading her the book ‘Thank You Bear’. Today, all St. Charles Elementary students said a special blessing and thank you to all of their teachers to show them how grateful they are for all that they do. Tina Timpano, vice principal of the school encouraged all of the students to express their gratitude to their teachers. “Being a teacher is a very hard job,” Timpano said. “We want our students to recognize the dedication, hard-work and passion of our teachers in making our students the very best they can be – and we are very thankful to them.”

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