TORONTO - Beloved mother, friend and “passionate advocate for Catholic education,” Toronto Catholic District School Board spokesperson Mary Jo Deighan died peacefully with her family by her side at Mississauga's Trillium Health Centre on June 17. Mrs. Deighan, 54, battled cancer on and off for the last two years.

Neil MacCarthy, spokesperson for the archdiocese of Toronto, said in an online post that he admired Mrs. Deighan's courage in battling cancer. This came at a challenging time for her and the board. As spokesperson, she fielded tough calls after the board was taken over by the province in 2008.

“During difficult days for the TCDSB, Mary Jo battled not only complex communication issues but her own personal health challenges yet always had time for colleagues and maintained a watching brief on issues as long as was possible,” wrote MacCarthy.

“I can still recall with embarrassment reaching her by cellphone on an 'urgent' matter only to learn that she was in the midst of a chemotherapy treatment, IV in arm and cheerfully reassuring me that it was no problem to call as her treatments went on for the better part of the day and it was an opportunity to catch up on phone calls and e-mails,” McCarthy recalled.

He said Mrs. Deighan approached her role as a ministry.

All Toronto area Catholic School boards managed average or better than average pass rates on province-wide standardized literacy tests this year.

Students in the York Catholic and Dufferin-Peel Catholic board scored above the provincial average of 83 per cent.

Eighty-eight per cent of Grade 10 YCDSB students who wrote the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test for the first time were successful. Also, more students with special education needs wrote the test compared to last year and the students experienced a five per cent increase in achievement.

“Our test scores continue to be among the highest in the province and this is something we are proud of,” said Elizabeth Crowe, chair of the YCDSB. “However, at the heart of those scores is the great teaching and learning happening in our schools. Our schools are clearly engaged, vibrant hubs of activity, focused on student achievement.”

At the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, 85 per cent of DPCDSB students were successful. This is the fifth year in a row that Dufferin-Peel Catholic District Students exceeded the provincial average.

Toronto Catholic student trustees are calling for the establishment of gay-straight alliances and “anti-homophobia education” in Catholic schools.

In a report tabled at the June 16 meeting of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, student trustee Natalie Rizzo  recommended implementation of an “inclusion and belonging week” in September. Rizzo said anti-homophobia education “is not sex education” and recommended it for all religion classes in elementary and high school.

The report, prepared by the TCDSB Catholic Student Leadership Impact Team, said that anti-homophobia education is in keeping with a mandate in Catholic education “to promote equality, democracy, solidarity, for a just, peaceful and compassionate society.” It also said anti-homophobia education would create a safe learning environment for all students.

In May the TCDSB passed an equity and inclusive education policy that included provisions against discrimination based on sexual orientation and said all types of social or cultural discrimination was unacceptable in its schools. Amendments have been proposed to that policy that would place even greater emphasis on the right of Catholic schools to operate according to Catholic religious beliefs.

TORONTO - If Catholic teachers want time out of the classroom to campaign for Liberal or NDP candidates during this fall’s provincial elections, their union will pay for substitute teachers, said Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association president James Ryan.

“It’s up to the local units. They raised that as a possibility. They can do that if they decide,”  said OECTA President James Ryan.

Currently, OECTA is endorsing no Conservative candidates among the provincial politicians it labels “education friendly.”

But the political snub is actually the other way around, Ryan explained. According to Ryan, Conservative leader Tim Hudak has refused requests for a meeting.

St. Jerome’s University is dreaming big. By 2015 the Catholic college at the University of Waterloo hopes to be well into a building and expansion program that will begin with a new residence and include an updated library and classrooms, a new student centre and a new graduate program.

St. Jerome’s “Strategic Vision: 2015 and Beyond” lays out the broad strokes, but by fall a campaign team expects to present to the board of governors fundraising goals and priorities, St. Jerome’s president and vice chancellor Fr. David Perrin told The Catholic Register.

“What the vision (statement) strives to do is articulate who we are and who we are proud to be, and where we want to go,” Perrin said.

The vision should start to become a reality in time for the college’s 150th anniversary in 2015, said Perrin.

TORONTO - Toronto Catholic District School Board veteran Léa Lacerenza has won this year’s Premier’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Lifetime Achievement for her innovative work in special education.

Lacerenza has worked in special education with the TCDSB for 31 years, the past 23 years seconded to the Learning Disabilities Research Program at Sick Kids Hospital as the senior research teacher and lead writer in curriculum development and programs.

Lacerenza leads the collaboration between Sick Kids and the board in developing innovative techniques designed to help students with severe learning disabilities through the Empower Program. The Empower Reading Programs are now taught in hundreds of schools across North America.

Lacerenza says her experience with her youngest sister, Diana, who had a mild learning disability, first motivated her to work with students with learning disabilities. Diana “was immensely talented, smart and creative,” Lacerenza recalled. But in the 1970s, Diana was streamed into a vocational program because of her learning disability. This helped Lacerenza discover her professional vocation.

TORONTO - Despite concerns voiced by several Catholic parents and ratepayers, the Toronto Catholic District School Board passed its equity and inclusive education policy at a May 19 board meeting.

But trustees will vote later on a number of proposed amendments to the policy made by some trustees after these are reviewed by the board's legal counsel.

The vote came after months of debate on how a Catholic school board should deal with the equity policy that the provincial government mandated each board come up with. The aim of the 2008 provincial legislation is to combat discrimination in schools based upon sexual orientation, race and religion. The key issue of concern for many was that Catholic denominational rights should be protected in the policy. Many stakeholders in the Toronto Catholic system fear the policy will be hijacked by groups seeking to override teachings of the Catholic Church.

The new policy, which passed by a 7-4 margin, states that "any form of social or cultural discrimination is incompatible with Catholic moral principles." It goes on to say "The board further recognizes that we must uphold the protections entrenched in the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Constitution Act 1867 and confirmed in the Constitution Act of 1982 — the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

The diocese of Peterborough and Trent University have signed a memorandum of understanding to help further discussions and set guidelines in establishing the future Sacred Heart College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Peterborough.

"It's important that now after a couple of years of discussion with Trent that we've entered into an understanding whereby both the future Sacred Heart College and Trent University are going to co-operate on establishing a relationship that will allow us to grant credit for courses," said Fr. Joseph Devereaux, chancellor of the Peterborough diocese, of the future university college which will be located in the basement of Sacred Heart parish.

The memorandum says that the college and Trent agree to "work together to explore the potential for delivery of distinctive and complementary educational opportunities," such as transfer credit recognition and degree completion pathways.

TORONTO - Opinions varied, mostly along age lines, as the Toronto Catholic District School Board held the second consultation meeting on its proposed equity policy.

About 150 parents, students and teachers gathered April 27 at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School to discuss the policy. Two distinct sides became clear after 14 small groups broke off to discuss the policy which aims to combat discrimination based upon sexual orientation, race and religion in Toronto's Catholic schools. While parents and teachers were more concerned with ensuring the Catholic identity of schools, students among the group emphasized the need to prevent homophobic bullying by establishing gay-straight alliances (GSAs).

The TCDSB will make a report on the input from the two consultations as well as an online survey, said TCDSB spokesperson Emmy Szekeres-Milne. The report could come as early as May 19, she said.  

During the three-hour meeting, participants broke off into smaller groups to discuss the policy, which the provincial government has mandated be in place by September. After 20 minutes, a representative from each group reported back to the larger group.

Editor’s Note: The following Education Week essay by Msgr. Dennis Murphy is not intended as a comparison between the public and Catholic school systems but is only intended to underline the positive contribution that Catholic schools make to public life.

As we approach the October provincial election the question of public funding of the Roman Catholic school system in Ontario will predictably be raised again. Opponents of Catholic schools will offer familiar arguments: it is unfair that one religious denomination has its own publicly funded schools; these schools represent a divisive force in our pluralistic society; a single education system would be more effective, cost efficient and save the taxpayer money; and a secular society should not be in the business of funding anything that is religious.

Promoters of the Catholic system will respond that Catholic schools exist due to promises made as part of our Canadian Confederation and are therefore constitutionally guaranteed. While probably acknowledging that it is indeed unfair that Catholics are uniquely privileged, advocates of Catholic education will suggest the solution is not to abolish Catholic schools but to make publicly funded schools available to other parents. Proponents of Catholic education will point out there is no evidence that Catholic schools are a divisive force, as witnessed in the graduates not only from Catholic schools but from the religious schools that receive public funding in provinces such as British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. To the financial argument, the response will be that it is virtually impossible to prove that bigger education systems are more efficient and effective financially or educationally. Considering the cost of the much larger administrative units born through amalgamation of boards in the late 1990s, the argument that bigger is better rings hollow. To the contention that the province should not fund religious organizations and institutions, Catholic educators will point to Ontario’s long history of financially supporting not only their schools but religious hospitals, children’s aid societies and so on, all of which significantly contribute to public life. Finally they will cite data that belies any claim that ours is a secular society.