TORONTO - Brianna Smrke had a perfect ending to her year final year of high school.

The 18-year-old Michael Power/St. Joseph High School student graduated as the top student in the Toronto Catholic District School Board with a flawless mark of 100 per cent in all six of her courses.

The secret to her success? Smrke says it’s been a supportive family and a positive school environment that helped her develop as a well-rounded student and person.

“I didn’t know I would be the best,” Smrke said, adding she just kept working hard, a habit she developed early. Her diverse experiences in sports, arts and community work also helped build up her skills, she said.

When his grandfather needed eye surgery, St. Robert Catholic High School student Albert Chiang was there to accompany him.

During the hospital visit, Chiang spoke to his grandfather’s doctor and was fascinated by the process and the profession. So this summer, Chiang is volunteering at North York General Hospital. He will be studying at McMaster University in the health sciences program in the fall.

Chiang, who’s 99.33 average at the Thornhill, Ont., school was just shy of Charis Lam’s 99.83 average for tops with the York Catholic District School Board, said this experience sparked his motivation to pursue a career as an eye surgeon. (Lam declined interview requests from The Catholic Register).

Whether it’s studying physics, her toughest subject, or being a member of the “Ecosaders,” Assumption High School student Eszter Gereb says she likes to challenge herself in everything she does.

Gereb, 17, graduated as Halton Catholic District School Board’s top student with an average of 97.2 per cent.

The Burlington, Ont., student hopes to add physicist to her list of accomplishments. Gereb said she found physics to be her most difficult subject, but adds it also turned out to be her favourite.

From preparing for school debates to raising awareness about poverty and homelessness, St. Mary Catholic High School’s top ace Timothy Ko says his high school experience has been a mix of academics and community involvement.

“Being part of a community is really important,” said the Pickering, Ont., student. “All my friends kept me in a good mood while at school... If I see someone else doing well, I want to do well.”

Ko had the highest marks in the Durham Catholic board, ending his high school career with a 97.7-per-cent average.

TORONTO - As a recent graduate from teachers’ college, Guelph, Ont.’s Jesse Lloyd, a non-Catholic, applied to teach at a Catholic school a few years ago.

But he says didn’t get the job because of the requirement to be Catholic.

In his college days, he remembers how a few of his colleagues talked about being lapsed Catholics and having to relearn their Catholicism — or at least put up an appearance of Catholicity — in order to qualify for a teaching position at a Catholic school.

As hints of back-to-school begin to drift into academic consciousness, professors and administrators at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ont., are still in labour negotiations.

The SJU Academic Staff Association was certified as a union by the Ontario Labour Relations Board April 24. The professors said they needed the legal protection of a labour contract in light of changes in how the Catholic college at the University of Waterloo is governed.

“Negotiations are underway, but proceeding slowly,” staff association president David Seljak told The Catholic Register in an e-mail.

TORONTO - With the dawn of the era of all-day Kindergarten for children three-and-a-half to six years old, Ontario will begin to see how much difference an early introduction to formal learning can make in the life of a child.

The program will begin in fewer than 600 schools province-wide when the school year dawns following Labour Day, but should be available in all elementary schools by 2015-2016. By September 2011 up to 50,000 pupils will be enrolled in upwards of 800 schools.

The latest enrolment numbers indicate good times for university level Catholic education, but that doesn’t mean Catholic colleges don’t face long-established challenges, said David Sylvester.

There are no separate statistics for the Catholic institutions, but the liberal arts and humanities numbers are a good indication of where Catholic colleges stand, said Sylvester, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in Canada.

University enrolment grew 3.7 per cent last year to 1.1-million university students across the country.

TORONTO - Toronto’s Catholic schools are keeping some children of non-status immigrant families out of the education system, according to a new report.

The July 14 report  by Social Planning Toronto said the Toronto Catholic District School Board was not implementing or enforcing policies that ensure non-status children can go to school.

“Results of this study demonstrate that TCDSB school staff are largely unaware of the rights of non-status students to public education under the Ontario Education Act,” said “Policy Without Practice,” a report by Social Planning Toronto, an advocacy and research group of 150 community organizations including Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Toronto.

Bruno, Sask. - Nestled in the prairie community of Bruno, the St. Therese School of Faith and Mission, which offers a nine-month Catholic formation program for adults, is proving to be one of the first fruits of the new evangelization as it brings its students into a deep relationship with God.

Sylvie Quiring, a recent alumnus of St. Therese, said the school’s unique programming, with a strong emphasis on both personal sanctity and the duties of the apostolate as an outflow of this, has been an experience of total love and acceptance.