Peggy Revell
With new projects and programs on the go, the local Northwest Catholic District School Board is looking forward to the new school year getting underway.
“This year our theme is ‘Celebrating the Spirit,’” noted Director of Education Mary-Catherine Kelly, with the five virtues they’re focusing on being hospitality, understanding, wisdom, justice, and gratitude.
The province has been emphasizing the goals of increased student achievement, reducing the gap in student achievement, and building public confidence, she explained.
For the local board, this means the priorities this year will be on “the three S’s,” Kelly said, meaning “Success for students, success for staff, [and] Successful stewardship of operations and resources.”
“Within this is teaching the students the 21st-century skills they will need,” she added. “And then all of that is infused with the Catholic faith in all our teaching methods.”
This fall sees the implementation of the new early learning program that eventually will transform into full-day junior kindergarten offered all across the province.
“It’s pretty exciting for us,” enthused Kelly. “St. Patrick’s School [in Atikokan] is the funded school for this year.
“They’ve got really great enrolment with it—they had 17 children in that first class—and we’ve hired our first full-time ECE teacher.
“So that’s up and underway,” she noted.
While it hasn’t received provincial funding, the board also has implemented full-day learning at St. Joseph’s school in Dryden.
“We had 49 JK kids and 38 SK kids, so that is definitely an improvement in those numbers,” Kelly remarked.
St. Michael’s School here, which is slated to offer full-day JK next year, also had “good enrolment,” she said, with 30 JK and 39 SK students—both up in numbers.
“Overall in our system, we’re still on our provincial trend of a four percent decline,” Kelly said, referring to student enrolment.
“But certainly parents were inspired by the opportunity for full-day kindergarten and certainly took advantage of it—and we’re certainly excited to be able to give that.”
With the new school year, the local Catholic board also has received various funding grants for new programs.
This board is the only one in Northern Ontario which landed the pilot project for “E” Help.
“Basically, it’s teachers who are tutors who are experts in math, who will be available online in the evenings for kids from Sundays to Thursdays,” Kelly explained.
“And the chat hours are from 5:30 to 9:30 [p.m.]
“We’re in the process now of just building that infrastructure to make that happen for the kids,” she added.
St. Francis teacher Dick Botsford has been working full-time to put together the “building blocks” of the pilot program, including 26 new laptop computers and other equipment which the students can access and use.
“So we’ll be a part of the research to see if it assists and helps kids,” Kelly said.
Another project the board has landed is the “Blended Learning Pilot Project.”
“The government has said what they want before every kid finishes high school [is] that they’ve achieved an e-learning course online,” Kelly noted.
“So what this blended e-learning pilot project is is we’re trying to build resources online for instruction so that kids are learning how to blend their regular classroom instruction with e-learning type activities, and building the resources for the teachers.
“And that way, kids become more familiar with how to use e-learning in school,” she said, noting they are the only board in Northwestern Ontario to be running this project.
And when it comes to technology, Kelly said the local Catholic board is in its second year of Smart Board implementation, meaning 75 percent of classrooms this year will have a Smart Board in them.
Technology-wise, the board also is the first across Ontario to pilot the offering of religious education courses for its teachers online.
Also new this year for the board is “Collaborative Inquiring Learning in Math,” which it will be working on with the local public board.
“This is a grant that’s research based, and it’s where we are actually working with trainers to work with teachers in math centres,” explained Kelly, noting the focus will be on how to improve student achievement in math while working with teachers on their teaching practices to “really build on their math skills to help the kids.”
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) will be working with the boards, and tracking how teaching and student achievement has improved.
Meanwhile, other pilot projects will be continuing this year, including the Oral Language Research Project with Dr. Carmel Crevola and OISE.
“Now we’re taking it to our Grade 3s,” Kelly said of the program, already implemented from JK-Grade 2, which helps teachers with small group instruction and strategies for “at risk” learners.
“And this year is the year where we’re consolidating our learning so we can share it all over the province, and highlight what skills we’ve taught the teachers and how its working with the kids so we can share that with other school boards in the province,” she added.
Kelly said a real high honour this year is St. Francis being named as a “school on the move” due to its ongoing high achievement in the province’s EQAO testing.
This means that other schools and boards will be coming to visit to learn best practices.
“As far as the new school year, I think we’re really setting the bar high, with high expectations around student achievement, around infusing our faith in the curriculum, and ensuring every child has an opportunity to achieve their best,” Kelly enthused.
“I’m excited about the e-learning, I’m excited about kindergarten.
“I think our teachers are excited and ready to roll with the new year.”
And with a municipal election this fall, Kelly also encouraged the Catholic community across the region to participate in the election of trustees to the board.
“We encourage all of our ratepayers to vote and select trustees that are going to really make good decisions for the Catholic community,” she remarked.
“I want to thank all our trustees for the hard work that they do,” Kelly added.
“They do an awesome job in managing the resources and being the public eye on want we do in Catholic education, and they are very supportive of the programs and the staff.”
