What a way to kick off the new year! Students at Immaculate Conception Catholic School enjoyed participating in the yearly “Knights of Columbus FREE THROW Competition” on January 5th, 2010. Fun was had by all. The Knights of Columbus Council 7368 are dedicated to our community. Each year, they conduct the “Free Throw” competition in 7 local schools in Valley East. The winners will participate in the Regional Competition to be held at Immaculate Conception School on January 28th.
Category: Programs
Bishop Alexander Carter Students Take Part in the Season of Giving
Students at Bishop Alexander Carter Catholic Secondary School were challenged to bring in gifts to support the St. Vincent de Pol Society which is a charitable organization that helps out the less fortunate. Each of the homerooms were asked to bring in gifts and fill out a bingo card that had certain gift items on it. Once the certain gift was brought in, the item was checked off on the card. When the whole card was complete, the homeroom won the Bingo and received a pizza lunch donated by Topper’s Pizza. This year’s winner was Mrs. Roy’s grade 12 homeroom class. Mrs. Roy’s students were the first to bring in all of their gifts and have them wrapped and ready for donating. Ms. Prusila, a teacher at Bishop took on the organizing of this project when she joined the Bishop staff as she felt it was important to have the students take part in the season of giving.
SCDSB Staff Published Authors in National Magazine
Dawn Wemigwans, Aboriginal Lead and Christina Raso, Special Education Consultant are both Sudbury Catholic District School Board staff who go above and beyond in their roles on a regular basis. Even though their daily workloads allow them little time for anything else, they both realized the importance of sharing best practices with other boards across Canada. Theresa Harris, Executive Director for the Ontario Catholic supervisory Officer’s Association asked all of the Catholic school boards across the province to submit their ideas and initiatives that engage young children in schools. The two women decided to write an article highlighting the value of providing authentic aboriginal learning experiences to students and how this already is taking place at our board. The selected articles were them submitted to a national magazine entitled “Leaders and Learners” which is the official magazine of the Canadian Association of School Administrators The article written by Wemigwans and Raso was one of seven from the entire province selected for the magazine.
Bishop Simard Celebrates Christmas with St. Ben’s
The staff and students of St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School were treated to a mass with Bishop Simard this past week. In the spirit of Christmas, Bishop Simard was invited to speak to the St. Benedict community and extol Christmas blessings upon them. As well, the Grade 8 students of St. James were also invited to share in their celebration.
St. John Catholic Elementary School Supports St. John the Evangelist Parish
Father Mathieu, Parish Priest of St. John the Evangelist in Garson accepted a cheque from Toni Kritz-Roque, the grade 2 teacher from St. John Catholic Elementary School last week. The school raised the money through gift donations from staff and students that were used to make baskets and then raffled off. As well, local business donated gift certificates for the school’s gift tree. Tickets were sold and a total of $1500 was raised to support the parish. The parish is using the money to purchase malaria nets for children in third world countries. Each net costs ten dollars and can potentially protect a small family or groups of children from malaria.
Sudbury Catholic Board Decides to Build Holy Cross Catholic School, JK to Grade 6
The Sudbury Catholic District School Board unanimously voted to make its newest high-tech green school a Junior Kindergarten to Grade 6 elementary school. The Board’s Trustees made the decision at the December 15, 2009 Board meeting.
The trustees decided the new Holy Cross Catholic School in Sudbury’s south end would be a separate Dual Track JK to Grade 6 School, located near St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School. The new school will also include an early-learning daycare facility and a 4,000 square foot gymnasium.
“Holy Cross is going to be a fantastic new school,” says Board Chair Jody Cameron, “It will be high-tech, offering the latest in educational technology – while being an intimate, safe and personable environment for children ranging from our new full-day junior kindergarten program to Grade 6. It’s an exciting time.”
Meantime, the Catholic Board also decided it will offer Grade 7 to 12 programming next door at the existing St. Benedict’s Catholic Secondary School. This will include the construction of new classrooms and a third gymnasium. The renovations will also include a new “cafetorium” (which is a combination of a cafeteria and auditorium) to serve both the elementary and secondary students. It could seat as many as 500 people for concerts, plays, presentations, guest speakers, and other special events.
“These two projects are exciting for students, parents, and teachers in our Catholic schools,” says Board Director, Catherine McCullough, “It’s a great decision which will continue to enhance our community partnerships. These students who already benefit from programs like our nationally-recognized laptop learning program will now have even more educational tools at their fingertips to help them have a balanced educational experience and go on to succeed in life.”
The Board Trustees made the decision after extensive consultation with the school communities impacted. The new Holy Cross Catholic School will open in September 2011. The new and improved St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School will also be ready for the fall of 2011. Both projects combined are projected to cost $16.2-million with $11.7-million coming from the provincial government – while the Board has agreed to contribute $4.5-million.
Marymount Academy Teacher Shows True Meaning of Christmas!
During the holidays, people often get caught up in the buying of presents and the more materialistic side of Christmas. Not so for Matthew Wiecha, teacher at Marymount Academy. For the past twenty years, Mr. Wiecha along with his students from Marymount Academy have helped their community by providing a bountiful Christmas lunch for the clients of the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth (S.A.C.Y.). For many homeless clients, dealing with addiction and mental health issues, the luncheon is often the only Christmas meal they have to look forward to. Jill Ospina, a St. Albert teacher who teaches out of S.A.C.Y. says that the clients had been talking about this luncheon for weeks and weeks. “A lot of the return clientele tell the new clients about the feast and the anticipation really builds.” says Ospina. Mr. Wiecha and his classes prepared weeks in advance for the day. They raised money, put in their own funds and organized the whole meal including the cooking of four turkeys! “Not only is it a great day for the people who come to eat, but for the Marymount girls as well.” states Wiecha. “It really builds a social conscious into the curriculum. The girls really look forward to it.” Mardi Taylor, Executive Director presented Mr. Wiecha with a plaque in honour of his twenty years of service to the centre. Mary Wiecha, Matthew’s wife was also on hand to surprise and support her husband for the presentation of the award. “I had never been here before to see this.” stated Mary. “It is amazing to see the amount of food and the number of people that are here to take part. I am really proud of my husband.” More than 200 people enjoyed the luncheon put on by Mr. Wiecha and his senior social science students. Cassandra MacGregor, Vice Principal of Marymount was also presented with a plaque to thank the students of Marymount for their participation. The Sudbury Catholic District School Board is proud of Mr. Wiecha and his students and would like to thank them for really exemplifying the true spirit of Christmas!
Sudbury Catholic Schools Pilot Turning Points Project
“After doing my research, I realized that the Sudbury Catholic District School Board is a board where the Turning Points project is really going to work well!” These were the words that Judi Symes from the Learning Partnership declared to the teachers invited to be a part of the pilot “Turning Points” project. On December 8, 2009 English teachers from St. Benedict Catholic Secondary High School and Marymount Academy joined Symes as well as Marni Angus from the organization The Learning Partnership. The Learning Partnership is a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to championing a strong public education system in Canada with its partners through innovative programs, credible research and executive leadership. This group approached Sudbury Catholic last year to see if there was any interest in piloting their innovative “Turning Points” project. This project links essay writing with personal experiences and it helps students get to know more about their own values as it is a combination of character education and literacy which is aligned with Ministry of Education expectations. Catherine McCullough, Director of Education realized that this was an amazing opportunity as the Sudbury Catholic District School board was the only board in Northeastern Ontario approached to be a part of this initiative and gave the project the green light. The teachers met with the team of Symes and Angus to delve a little deeper into the process involved and learned that the students will be asked to write an essay relating to a turning point in their life through different class exercises that will lead up to the final piece of writing. Those students that are willing to share their work will then submit them for two different tiers of judging. By the end of the year, there will be an awards ceremony that celebrates the students and their winning essays. The Turning Points trainer, Judy Symes – a former Head of English for the Toronto District School Board, says that the students are asked to really scrutinize turning points in their lives as their own emotion can be a critical part of their learning. She believes that risk taking needs to happen for meaningful learning to occur. This is what is asked of the students involved in this assignment. “The essay writing involved will not change everybody’s life, but for a lot of these students and teachers it is really, really special. It is very often transformational!” The teachers that attended this inservice walked away inspired to engage their students in this project in the upcoming months.
Sudbury Catholic Board Names New High-Tech, Green Elementary School
There was a celebratory as Trustees with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board voted to name Sudbury’s new elementary school. In the end, trustees selected the name “Holy Cross Catholic School.”
“The name ‘Holy Cross’ has significant meaning,” says Board Chair, Jody Cameron, “The four points of the cross represents the coming-together of four existing school communities into one new, learning community where our children will learn and make lifelong friends. This is a very exciting time for the Board and the expansion of Catholic Education in Sudbury’s south end.”
The decision comes after extensive consultation with students, teachers and parents from Corpus Christi, St. Christopher, St. Michael and St. Theresa schools — as well as St. Francis. The Board also got input from the local Parishes and community partners.
The new school will serve elementary students in the city’s south end and will be located on the St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School site. Catherine McCullough, Director of Education for the Sudbury Catholic District School Board is equally pleased with the decision of the new school’s name.
McCullough emphasized, “Holy Cross Catholic School will have lower energy and utility costs than traditionally built schools, and the money saved can go back into the classrooms. That means more money to expand on programs such as our already-established, nationally-recognized Learning with Laptops program as well as full-day junior kindergarten which the Board announced just last month.”
“The naming of this new state-of-the-art school is only the beginning of the many new steps that our Board will be taking in creating this educational village in the city’s south end,” stated Board Chair Cameron, “The next step is to complete the architectural final plans for the design of the new school and get shovels in the ground.”
The Board will decide on the site plan for Holy Cross at next Tuesday’s regular Board meeting. The school will open in September 2011.