{mosimage}With three of his former students struck down by gun violence, teaching veteran James Flaherty says he was driven to try to make a difference.

The graphics and technology teacher has been at Malton, Ont.’s Ascension of Our Lord High School for 15 years and has used his film-making skills to try to make that difference.

{mosimage}TORONTO  - The Ontario government’s proposed bill on student accountability would diminish the powers of democratically elected school trustees, says the president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association.

Paula Peroni told The Catholic Register that if passed in the Ontario legislature, Bill 177 would increase the provincial government’s control over school boards.

{mosimage}Hiring only Catholic teachers at publicly funded Catholic schools is “unfair” and discriminatory, says a Guelph-area teacher who has recently taken the Wellington Catholic District School Board to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

“It’s unfair for a large organization to accept large taxpayer dollars, including my own, and then not being interested in hiring everybody from whom those tax dollars come from,” Jesse Lloyd told The Catholic Register in an interview from Guelph.

{mosimage}BURLINGTON, Ont - Alice Anne LeMay recalls playing the role of “hot dog lady” at a basketball game for special needs students in the Halton Catholic District School Board .

LeMay, whose son has a hearing disability, said it’s activities like these which highlight the Catholic and “inclusive” spirit of the Halton board over the past four decades.

{mosimage}TORONTO - St. Joseph’s Morrow Park High School students can breathe a sigh of relief — at least for the next three years.

The Toronto Catholic District School Board is finalizing a deal with Tyndale College, which has been leasing the property to the board since 2006, that would allow students to remain at the school temporarily. Tyndale bought the 20-hectare property from the Sisters of St. Joseph three years ago. 

{mosimage}TORONTO - Eight years and $5.2 million later, the Sisters of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary look on the big blue bank of solar panels gracing the roof of Loretto College and know that it is more than worth the trouble.

“It’s God’s planet and we need to take care of it,” explained mother superior Sr. Evanne Hunter.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Newly elected Ontario Teachers’ Federation president Reno Melatti says he remembers the days when Catholics had to fight for publicly funded education.

Preserving public Catholic schools today and in the future, he said, is a matter of equality and part of Ontario’s history.

Melatti, who became the 66th president of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation on Sept. 2, is a graduate of and former teacher at Ontario Catholic schools. From his own experience, he said he learned about the positive impact and value of Catholic education.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The newly appointed provincial supervisor of the Toronto Catholic District School Board is overturning a controversial decision to axe the Arrowsmith program, effectively ending a lawsuit against the board and Ontario’s education minister.

Richard Alway said in a letter to parents that after a “careful review,” and in consultation with the board’s director of education, he has decided to continue the program for students currently enrolled until 2012.

{mosimage}BRAMPTON, Ont. - More than 300 students celebrated the opening of the first Canadian high school named after former Toronto archbishop Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic on Sept. 8.

Principal Tim Lariviere said the Brampton school is honouring Ambrozic in a number of ways. Its coat of arms includes many of Ambrozic’s own coat of arms, complete with the cardinal’s hat, cross and the picture of the lion representing the Gospel of Mark, the topic of Ambrozic’s doctoral thesis.

{mosimage}TORONTO - For most kids, foster care is no joy ride to a brighter future.

“There’s so much else going on in your life. There’s the reasons you went into care in the first place,” points out 18-year-old Nevena Seke.

This year Seke is one of 97 Greater Toronto Area students granted a Hope for Children Foundation scholarship to help launch her post-secondary education. This year the foundation which supports Catholic Children’s Aid of Toronto handed out $180,000 in scholarship money.