TORONTO - Like most refugees in Canada, Khulood Jarjass appreciates her new homeland for its relative safety, the freedom, the opportunity to dream again of a future for herself and her family. But what really excites the mother of three and former high school math teacher is a free Catholic education for her kids.“When I heard in Canada it’s free — Oh my God!” she said. “I was so happy.”
Her kids range in age from seven to 13, Grades 2 to 7, all in St. Andrew’s in Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood. The Jarjass kids spent a year-and-a-half in crowded Syrian classrooms with a mass of other refugee students. Their teachers couldn’t help but look at the Iraqi students as an added burden and the Syrian kids saw the Iraqis as invaders in their schools. Syrian and Iraqi kids fought in and out of the classrooms.
Ontario bishops eager to consult on sex-ed curriculum
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - Ontario's Catholic bishops, teachers and trustees say they're eager to co-operate with the education ministry as it revamps the province's controversial sex education curriculum.A joint statement issued April 28 by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, the Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, said the three groups look forward to participating in a review that was announced earlier in the week by Premier Dalton McGuinty. A new province-wide sex-ed curriculum that was to launch in September was sent back to the drawing board by McGuinty following howls of protest from several parent groups.
School board pulls support for HPV vaccination
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}BURLINGTON, Ont. - Catholic Grade 8 students in Oakville, Burlington and surrounding areas won't be vaccinated on school property against a virus that causes cervical cancer. Halton Catholic District School Board voted 5-4 to reverse last year's decision to host public health nurses giving the Gardasil shot against HPV to girls whose parents have requested it.
Province-wide teacher negotiations a no-go
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}TORONTO - Just because provincial education bureaucrats and top union officials are sitting down together in meeting rooms talking about wages and benefits with an eye toward another four-year deal doesn’t mean Ontario has embraced province-wide bargaining with teachers’ unions, said Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.
Teachers need to form future leaders
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}TORONTO - Senator Romeo Dallaire wants teachers to save Canada. According to the retired general who led United Nations peacekeepers during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the only thing that can save this country from cynicism, apathy and petty regionalism is leadership.
Catholic system is here to stay
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}TORONTO - Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne put a positive spin on the bitter debate over confessional education during the fall election campaign in a speech to Catholic teachers at their annual union meeting in Toronto March 9.
Neil McNeil celebrates 50 years of Spiritan way
By Carolyn Girard, The Catholic Register{mosimage}TORONTO - Fifty years have passed since Irish priests from the Spiritan order founded Neil McNeil Catholic High School, an all-boys’ Catholic school in Toronto’s east end.
Deal guarantees school labour peace in Ontario
By Michael Swan, The Catholic RegisterSchool board chair vows to stay on
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}TORONTO - Major newspapers, the Peterborough-and-area Catholic school board and hundreds of parents have called on Toronto’s Catholic school trustees to resign. But board chair Catherine Leblanc-Miller rejects the calls.
“If I am resigning... it will be because of the impact of all of this on my family,” she told The Catholic Register. “It will be because of the countless hours over recent weeks and months that I have neglected my family. It will not be because of any shame I feel.”
Ontario takes control of Toronto Catholic school board
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}TORONTO - The province has taken over Toronto's Catholic school board. Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne appointed Norbert Hartmann supervisor responsible for the day-to-day operations and finances of the troubled board Wednesday morning, June 4.
Archbishop chastises Toronto Catholic trustees
By Archbishop Thomas Collins{mosimage}Editor's note: the following is a letter dated May 27 from Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins to the trustees of the Toronto Catholic District School Board.
Dear Trustees of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
One evening not long ago I joined a gathering of devoted Catholic educators in the room where you deliberate, to celebrate the publication of Dr. Robert Dixon's new history of Catholic education in Toronto, We Remember, We Believe. It is a story of many difficulties, but also of the dedication, competence and self-sacrifice of the religious sisters and brothers, and of the laity and clergy who for over 160 years developed Catholic education in our community. We have much of which we can be proud in the past and in the present.