TRANSPORTATION CANCELLED, SCHOOLS REMAIN OPEN – SUDBURY, ESPANOLA AND MASSEY
BUSSES ARE RUNNING ON MANITOULIN ISLAND
Due to poor road conditions and in the interest of safety, all school related transportation services for English Catholic, English public, French Catholic and French public schools, operating in the districts of SUDBURY, ESPANOLA AND MASSEY (this includes all areas such as St-Charles, Noëlville, Monetville, Markstay, Hagar, Warren, Wahnapitae, Coniston, Killarney, Whitefish, Whitefish River First Nations, Onaping, Chelmsford, Capreol, Valley East, Garson, Chelmsford and Azilda) are cancelled today. All schools will remain open, however, NO transportation will be provided.
Parents who transport their children to school are reminded that they must pick their children up at the end of the school day.
Bullying in all forms is considered a serious issue that affects student learning, sense of safety and overall well-being. Having respect and kindness towards one another is extremely important for our school board because a school should be a place where everyone feels included and everyone is welcome. By providing a safe learning environment, SCDSB can ensure student success and create responsible and compassionate leaders in learning and faith to help change the world for the better.
November 21 – 27, 2021 is Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week. This week is designed to promote safe schools and positive learning environments and will encourage everyone to play their part in preventing bullying at school, online and in the community.
Yet one of the most important things to understand during these conversations of bullying, is that it’s not just something that happens at school or online – it also happens in your home and in your neighborhood as well as other places where children spend time. This week we ask everyone in our community (students, educators, staff, parents and guardians) to consider how they can play their part to prevent bullying wherever it might happen so that all children and people can learn and grow in safe, positive environments.
To help understand how you can play your part to stop bullying, please review the following resources provided by the Ministry of Education.
Why Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week Matters
Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week is significant to note because it enables schools and community members to promote positive change in student learning, achievement, and well-being for a safer learning environment, which is essential to student success.
Everyone has a responsibility to stop bullying. This week is an opportunity to increase awareness of the available tools and resources that will encourage everyone to get involved with bullying prevention.
To assist in this effort, the Ministry of Education has provided themes that can be focused on each day during this week:
Providing a safe environment ensures student success. Bullying Awareness and Prevention week is about spreading kindness and gratitude and being aware of what’s happening around you. Are you being accepting and inclusive? Can you do something to help someone who is being bullied or could be a bully? The leaders of tomorrow will be impacted by the leaders of today. By acknowledging bullying’s impact and finding ways to stop it, you will help keep our community rooted in respect for all.
Bullying in all forms hinders children, teens, and all individuals from fully reaching their potential and discovering the path they want to take. Sudbury Catholic Schools continues to foster acceptance, unity, and kindness in projects and organizations that aim to fight bullying and invite everyone to do their part.
PREVNet is a national research and knowledge mobilization hub that brings together researchers and national organizations to build research capacity, assess youth relationship problems including bullying and dating violence, and promote evidence-based programs and effective policies across Canada to address and reduce youth interpersonal violence and promote healthy relationships.
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is a small nonprofit that invests resources into making kindness the norm.
Their evidence-based Kindness in the Classroom® curriculum gives students the social and emotional skills needed to live more successful lives. Their workplace kindness calendar shows companies how easy it is to change workplace culture through simple kind gestures.
Sudbury Catholic District School Board is pleased to introduce students to Storwell, in support of their Foster Children Bursary Program.
Storewell offers an annual bursary of $2,000 in support of foster children to help them attend post-secondary schools and to offer a hand up as they make their way forward in life.
Your newest member of our provincial EQAO Student Engagement committee. WOW!
We want to congratulate Myra who was selected out of 250+ students to be on this very important committee to promote student voice and find ideas/ strategies that will help our school community become more inclusive. Myra and the 34 other students that were selected in Ontario, carry on a role of leadership in their schools by attending regular zoom meetings and have wholesome discussions around equity and student needs. Well done Myra, we are extremely thrilled to celebrate your accomplishment, while starting our grade 11’s off in the OSSLT testing this week.
November 1-7 is Treaties Recognition Week, an important time of year where Ontario students acknowledge and learn about treaties as well as the histories, perspectives, and contributions of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
The Sudbury Catholic District School Board (SCDSB) is celebrating its participation in Treaties Recognition Week. This year, we honour Indigenous histories, perspectives, and contributions through meaningful lessons, presentations, readings, events and celebrations for students and staff at all our schools.
School Highlights
St. John
At St. John Catholic Elementary School, students in Mrs. Galipeau’s class learned about wampum belts in an activity where they could make their own belts out of Lego. Students in Grade 5 and 6 created the 1764 Treaty of Niagara wampum belt. Pictured are Nathan and Olivia, Jaguar students proudly showcasing their class’s completed belt. Wampum belts represent agreements and promises that last “as long as the sun shines and rivers flow”.
On Nov. 2nd, Grade 2 students in Mrs. Child’s class at St. Charles Catholic Elementary School read “Dakota Talks About Treaties.” Afterwards, they created a word web to describe what the word “treaty” means. Also, reading a story was Ms. Trudeau and Ms. D’Angelo’s class! “A Family Cookout” was read to help students explore measuring objects. Afterwards, Ms. Trudeau led an engaging lesson on making bannock where students used their knowledge in a real-life context. However, reading wasn’t the only popular activity. Mrs. Blakely’s grade 1 class learned all about the medicine wheel, smudged, made wampum belts and created their very own classroom treaty.
At St. David, a school-wide activity was implemented in preparation for the week. The Grade 5 class mapped the forested area in an educational exercise that touched on Indigenous identity, history, and ways of being. In an abundance of activities, students learned about treaties, promises, wampum belts and what it means to be indigenous. The school listened to “The Drum Calls Softly” and students created versions of the artwork in the video.
Over at Pius, Treaty Recognition Week was in full force. The school’s Grade 6 students took part in a lesson that included constructing their own Wampum commitment string. Wampum commitment string symbolizes an agreement of respect and peace. Collectively, all the strings will attach and form a family circle to honour Treaty Week.
To commemorate Treaty Week, the students in Grade 2/3 FI at St. James explored the significance of wampum belts as representations of promises that were made to last. They recreated the Treaty of Niagara wampum belt with Legos and other materials and mapped out some of our province’s treaties.
St. Benedict’s kicked off Treaty Recognition Week with Smudging available to students and staff. Classes participated in the Treaty Awareness dialogue. For example, Treaty is ‘Legally Binding’ and that there is also a ‘Sacred Element’ to the agreements. In addition, the school’s Life Skills Class learned and designed a Wampum Treaty Belt of their choosing. Tobacco was offered to our Indigenous Support Worker, Ms. Agowissa, for knowledge sharing. “We Are All Treaty People and are in the Robinson Huron Treaty region.”
Other highlights included secondary students participating in the Robinson Huron Treaty “Treaty Talks with Tomorrow’s Leaders”. Students were able to listen to different Ogimaak/Chiefs from RHT communities share treaty knowledge past, present and future about ‘Gweksijigewin’ (making things right). This knowledge was applied on Friday, Nov. 5th, with presentations from the students.
It truly is very exciting to see what beautiful things our schools are doing to honour this essential part of the learning experience. Thank you to all our staff and community leaders, who took the time to capture and share some of the many wonderful things they were able to participate in this week. For more school activity updates, check out Indigenous Education SCDSB.
We are pleased to announce that the SCDSB’s Monday, Nov. 19th PA day is multi-themed. A variety of professional learning opportunities will be provided including topics such as mathematics, literacy, mental health and wellbeing, etc.
On September 30th, St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School students and staff came together to recognize the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation by putting together and completing a Walk for Wenjack.
What is Walk for Wenjack?
Walk for Wenjack is a grassroots event that started in 2016. The first walk retraced the steps of Chanie Wenjack, beginning at the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, ON, and continued to Redditt, ON for a ceremony representing Chanie’s final resting spot near Farlane.
Since it’s been established, the Walk for Wenjack has provided Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada with the opportunity to participate in Secret Path Week in a meaningful way. The purpose of this walk not only empowers personal reflection, but further helps to acknowledge that everybody has their reason to Walk for Wenjack. No matter what that is, the walk is set up to help people honour their reason.
“Depending on the person, everyone has different connections to this day,” Says a St. Ben’s Grade 8 student who participated in the walk. “It doesn’t have one true meaning, but it is an opportunity for us to think about it together and what it might mean to yourself, and also to different people.”
According to the Walk for Wenjack website, for some individuals, this day could be a moment to honour Chanie. While for others, it may be an opportunity to raise awareness of the true history of residential schools. Nevertheless, both the school and Walk for Wenjack organization expresses that each walk is genuinely unique and has helped community’s understand how this day can impact and mean different things to different people.
Details of the Walk
The walk took place outside, on the St. Benedict’s school track. It was done over the course of the day by one class at a time to maintain safety and social distancing. At the end of the walk, each class tied an orange ribbon around St. Benedict’s “Every Child Matters” flag pole to help create awareness and promote togetherness.
In addition to the walk, signs were posted around the field to help remind people of the purpose of why they were walking. Each class also had a student representative that carried an “Every Child Matters” Indigenous flag, which was proudly displayed in the school’s front hall after the event.
“Though we could not walk altogether, our flag pole was a strong visible display that has helped unite our staff, students and community members together by showing our support is something we all participated in.” Says Merrill Sanowar, Vice Principal of St. Benedict’s.
Future Action
The event is just one of many that their school will hope to participate in the future. As of this year, St. Benedict has signed up to be a Legacy School.
To be a Legacy School, entails that the Downey Wenjack organization will provide educational resources and program development to help ensure that Indigenous peoples’ unique interests, rights, and perspectives are recognized and implemented in St. Benedicts education and community. The Legacy Schools program is a free national initiative put on by the Downey Wenjack organization to engage, empower and connect students and educators to further reconciliation through awareness, education and action (#reconciliACTION) and will help create a close knit environment people can be comfortable and express themselves in.
“This is a commitment towards action. As an entire school community, this will be successful by all sharing and participating in this together. Every Child Matters isn’t exclusively talking about our Children. Every person was a child at one time. We want to show that we are doing this together and wish to let the community know.” Says Laura Kuzenko, Principal of St. Benedicts.
Skills Ontario has officially opened registration for its July virtual workshops so students can explore skilled trades and tech-related workshops, demonstrations, virtual tours and presentations that pique their interest.
Sessions will run from July 5 to 30 and there is no fee to participate. Another session is set to run in August, with sign-up opening June 21. The virtual workshops are being held in place of summer camps.
Virtual workshops are open to all ages however are typically suited to Grades 7, 8 and 9. Each event’s individual registration page provides details regarding difficulty level and required skills and some sessions include a free hands-on kit that will be shipped to registered participants.
Staff and students took part in Franco- Fun Day: a day dedicated to celebrating French language and Franco-Ontarian culture! Here are just a few ways our schools joined in on the fun:
St. Charles College students were treated to a live concert by Steph Paquette!
Holy Trinity Catholic Elementary School staff and students got into the spirit by wearing white and green in honour of the Franco-Ontarian flag.
Immaculate Conception Catholic School students participated in a workshop by Ariko. They loved learning how to play the spoons and learning the dance steps. They listened to the song Mon beau drapeau and discussed the meaning of the Franco-Ontarian flag. The students then drew their own flag while listening to les chansons à répondre!
