After Pope John Paul II’s death in 2005, students in Joe Tersigni’s Grade 10 history class reminisced via webcam with teens from the Pope’s former high school in Poland about his legacy.

It’s this kind of interactive teaching style that has left an impact on students, earning the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School teacher in Guelph, Ont., a Premier’s Award for Teaching Excellence as one of the province’s “teachers of the year” in 2008-2009.

Durham Catholic District School Board teacher Catherine MacDonald didn’t expect to bump into anyone she knew, particularly one of her students, while visiting a Viking exhibit in Ireland.

But a few years ago, the archeology and history teacher at Fr. Leo J. Austin Catholic High School in Whitby, Ont., heard someone call out for “Ms. MacDonald” and turned around to see a former student on a graduation trip.

TORONTO - The saying "out with the old, in with the new"  did not seem to apply to Catholic school board trustee elections on Nov. 13, since almost all "the old" were re-elected, while "the new" were reluctantly given a chance.

The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board received the Marsha Forest Centre Rose Quartz Warrior Award on Oct. 30 for being the first school board in the world to include special needs students in its regular classrooms. The last program which separated special needs students closed down in 1969.

TORONTO - A new project aimed at reducing the gap in reading and writing test scores for aboriginal students is producing impressive results, according to Mary-Catherine Kelly.

Kelly, Northwestern Catholic District School Board Director of Education, facilitated a presentation on the Oral Language Project at the 80th annual general meeting of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association from April 29 to May 1 in Thunder Bay, Ont.

{mosimage}As the Halton Catholic District School Board prepares to launch into the second year of its mandate, trustees are still huddling with private consultants in hopes of articulating a common vision and priorities.

TORONTO - Aside from the annual Lenten Masses at St. John's School, alumni Angela Carroll remembers joining her Grade 4 classmates in the hallway as the school set up TVs in the hallway to watch Paul Henderson's 1972 history-making goal against the Soviet team.

Carroll is now a teacher at her old school on Kingston Road in Toronto's east end and will be joining alumni in celebrating St. John's centenary milestone May 8. Carroll says the event will be special, not only because she is an alumni, but her husband also attended the school, and their children are now students there.

WINDSOR, Ont. - Ontario Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky was taken to task by Catholic principals and vice principals here over her government’s recent budget bill which could hit them in the wallet.

Bill 16 proposes that non-bargaining employees across the public sector — about 350,000 employees altogether — have their wages frozen for two years as part of an austerity move by the province to cope with a severe deficit.

Dombrowsky was speaking before more than 300 delegates at the annual meeting of the the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario in Windsor April 22.

For Iraqi families that have endured months and years living as refugees in Damascus and Beirut, just landing in Canada doesn't solve all their problems.

But the Ontario's publicly funded Catholic schools come close. Take a virtual visit to St. Andrew's Catholic School in Etobicoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TORONTO - Ontario’s public Catholic schools will always assert their right to teach students Catholic doctrine on matters of faith and morality, says the Institute of Catholic Education.

“When it comes to matters of faith and morality, denominational rights accorded to the Catholic schools of Ontario supersede any Government of Ontario directives which are at variance with the teachings of the church,” said ICE executive director Sr. Joan Cronin.