As the Olympics draw closer, Canadians can’t help but catch the spirit. Some of our SCDSB staff and students were lucky enough to be a part of this historic event this past weekend. One of our teachers from St. Charles College, Jennifer Petahtegoose, and her daughter Hannah, a student at St. James Catholic Elementary danced at the torch lighting ceremony in Sudbury with Kim Nootchtai and her daughter Brianna who is also a student at St. James. As well, Steve Callaghan, our Chaplain at St. Charles College has two sons who are graduates of St. Charles who were both Olympic torch runners for the ceremony.
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KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS “FREE THROW” COMPETITION
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.
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.
St. Ben’s Students Learn About Hospitality and Tourism at Cambrian College
Students from St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School were invited to Cambrian College recently to learn more about their Hospitality and Tourism programming. It was a day full of activities and learning as the students participated in different workshops such as preparing their own lunch in the Fountaine Bleue Dining Room. Edith Vigna, the teacher from St. Benedict who accompanied the students said that the highlight for the group was making their own pizzas for lunch. ” We had a really good day at Cambrian College.” stated Vigna. “The kids were very interested and asked really good questions. They are looking forward to attending more workshops like these in the future!”
SCDSB Staff Support Community Access Programs
Board office staff of the Sudbury Catholic District School Board brought in donations this past month to support Community Access Programming. This organization collects warm clothing for families in need during the winter months. The board office staff brought in socks, hats, mitts and scarves to donate to these families.
Sudbury Regional Police Supports St. David’s
The Greater Sudbury Police Services Admin. Chief, Deputy Chief and Inspectors went to St. David’s recently to spread the gift of the Love of Reading with the students and staff of St. David Catholic Elementary School. Each school day for one week, a member of the Greater Sudbury Police Services senior team took time out in the classrooms and read Christmas tales of peace, joy an giving. Students were inspired and enthused after the police services visits and were looking forward to sharing a good book with their mentors in the new year!
St. Andrew School Community Proudly Supports Student Success
The parents from St. Andrew Catholic Elementary School generously dedicated their evening hours once every two months to work at Bingo One and earned extra funds to support student success for their children. Some of the wonderful things they have done are to support an amazing up to date library, stock the classroom libraries, grassed the soccer field, supplied trees for the field, purchased a summer shade structure and funded many extra curricular field trips to support the arts and athletics in the school. A warm thank you goes out to the parents on behalf of the St. Andrew Catholic School community!
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.
Sudbury Catholic District School Board Staff Take Part in Teacher Learning And Leadership Program (TLLP)
The Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP)is an opportunity for experienced teachers to engage in self-directed action research with funding from the Ministry of Education. Teachers submit project proposals to their Principal, who then sends the proposal on to the Superintendent of Program. The Superintendent then selects one or two projects to send on to the Ministry for consideration. This project was initiated in 2007, with the first two cohorts of projects reaching completion in July 2009. The Sudbury Catholic District School Board has had a project in each of the three cohorts so far (two have been completed, and one in ongoing).
In November, all of the project leaders from the first two cohorts across the province came together in Toronto to celebrate and share their findings. This “Sharing the Learning Summit” was a powerful and positive experience. Marlene Lee, a teacher from St. Paul School, shared her project entitled Cameras, Camcorders and Computers: Intermediate Students Sharing their Visual Insights”. Krista Sarmatiuk, Kathy McDowell and Kevin Krystia, from St. Raphael School, shared their project entitled “Problem-Solving: Math, Literacy and Logic”.
Thanks to Ministry funding, both teams have developed valuable resources for teachers to use which will help to promote student success by creating engaging and differentiated learning opportunities.
All of the TLLP participants were sent an invitation to submit a proposal to present at the 5th Annual Ontario Education Research Symposium. Marlene Lee’s presentation was one of thirty-five proposals accepted to mount a display from February 17 -19, 2010. She will now have the opportunity to share what she has learned during her TLLP and also to see what other educational research is taking place in the province.