STRATHCLAIR COMMUNITY SCHOOL

HAWKS - Honouring Anishinaabe Wisdom Kindles Success for All

Through the teachers Idea fund Strathclair School has been awarded a 2.5 -year $284 000 grant.  We are honoured to have received this grant and are busy planning to ensure this grant will be used to its maximum potential to improve the success of all our students at SCS.  

The highlights of year one of the grant are:

Hiring a new staff member

Increasing guidance time

Art Therapy

Bringing in language teachers of Anishinaabemowin to co teach with staff.

Increase resource supports

Create a student support room

Add multiple land-based education opportunities

Introduce more therapy options for students

We will be collecting data and assessing how these opportunities have affected student success.  We will be asking for surveys and feedback throughout this grant to ensure we are getting the optimum results.

Specific items introduced recently:

New staff:  We have hired a tandem of teachers to free up  Rebecca Okemow to have more guidance time and facilitate the HAWKS program.  Kathy Mckerchar will be on a term from Feb. 7- March 11 and Kennedy Moffat will be taking over for the remainder of the school year.

Donna Campbell and Victoria Mckay have been implementing a sharing circle on Thursdays for students to attend.

Kelly Roe and Dana Corr will start doing presentations on March 10 to introduce students to art therapy.

We have created a new course called:  Anishinaabé: Identity through language and land-based learning 21G.  All grade 10’s and many Grade 11’s are enrolled in this course. We will aim to have a course available to all students in each grade level focusing on infusing Anishinaabemowin.

We are having discussions and scheduling Anishinaabemowin language teachers to begin working with our students.

Land Acknowledgement

Park West School Division recognizes our history as an organization and as settlers to these lands on treaty 2 and treaty 4, the original lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis Nation. Park West School Division respects the treaties that were made on these territories, we acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we dedicate ourselves to move forward in partnership with indigenous communities, in the spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.