BOARD HIGHLIGHTS
TRUSTEES
Ron Schreiber, Chair
Okotoks
JANUARY 2017
Harry Salm, Vice Chair
Strathmore
Mark Chung
Drumheller
John de Jong
Brooks
Christie Caskey
Oyen
Vijay Domingo
Canmore
Joanne Van Donzel
High River
Andrea Keenan
MD of Foothills
SENIOR
ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Scott Morrison
Superintendent
Gary Chiste
Chief Deputy Superintendent
Dr. Bonnie Annicchiarico
Associate Superintendent
Michael Kilcommons
Associate Superintendent
Jerry Bagozzi
Treasurer
Dorothy Burns
Director of Religious Education
Rhonda Schachterle
Director of Student Services
Cheryl Kuemper
Director of Curriculum and
Instruction
Vincent Van Hyfte
Executive Director of
Capital Projects and Technology
Dave Lunn
Director of Facilities
Sharing Our Expertise in English
Language Education
Recently, Christ The Redeemer
hosted an event entitled the English
Language Learners (ELL) Southern
Alberta Forum. There were 25 people in attendance, representing most
rural school divisions located across
Southern Alberta. The group discussed best practices for educating
students for whom English is a second language.
An ‘emergency’ situation of new
enrolments six years ago prompted
a response from CTR Catholic, and
we have proven in recent years to
be one of the leading authorities in
meeting these students’ needs.
Associate Superintendent, Dr. Bonnie Annicchiarico, and Coordinator
of English Language Learning, CoraLeah Schmitt, led the event and
shared our expertise. We were
pleased to have an Alberta Education
representative in attendance.
What we discovered was that CTR
Catholic was able to build more capacity than most in this area. This was due
to the Board’s generous financial support, targeted at meeting the needs of
ELL’s via both increased school-based
staffing and the addition of a divisional
ELL Coordinator.
The event was very successful, and, as a
result, Foothills School Division will
host a second event this Spring.
Corporate Services Report for the Board Meeting
Associate Superintendent, Michael
Kilcommons, indicated that preparations are underway for the
development of the 2017-2018
budget. Mr. Kilcommons has met
with each Principal to discuss the
budget scenarios based on antici-
pated provincial funding levels,
incremental costs of staffing, and
enrollment projections. Principals
are currently engaged in updating
all the aforementioned data as a
means to develop preliminary
budget projections. The Board is
well aware of the challenges that
might exist due to the incremental costs of staff salary increases, without commensurate
increases in provincial funding,
yet nothing can be determined
for certain until the provincial
budget is released.
Have You Dedicated Your Taxes to
Catholic Education?
Did you know you can direct
your property taxes to support
Catholic education?
Catholic education is funded through
education property taxes, grants and
general provincial revenue. Taxes
declared in support of the Catholic
separate school district in your municipality benefit your children.
Your taxes support Catholic
Education by:
- Recognizing and affirming the constitutional right of Catholic separate
school boards to requisition municipalities for education taxes.
- Maintaining a vital connection between school boards and their elec-
tors. Taxation serves as a means of
accountability for school trustees to
provide quality education to those in
their local communities, including
those without school-aged children.
- Providing a stable source of funding
for public education and allowing for
a public declaration of support by
electors for Catholic education.
To ensure your property taxes
are supporting your Catholic
separate school:
You must declare your school support as "separate" on your annual
property assessment notice and tax
bill. If a declaration of school support
is not filed by a property owner, the
property assessment and tax bills are
directed to the public school district.
To change your support designation,
complete and submit a School Support Declaration form, obtained
from your local city, town or municipal office.
Check your property bill to
confirm your support for Catholic education!
Page 2
Board Highlights
Superintendents’ Update
Superintendent, Dr. Scott
Morrison, summarized several
positive developments of late.
Online registration is a new endeavor that has been successful,
and numbers suggest that registrations are ahead of typical
years. Paddy Clarke and Cindy
Ballance have been a great team
at developing the system and
communicating processes. VTRA
(Violent Threat Risk Assessment)
training represents a team approach to assessing risk. Most
principals have been given this
invaluable training. Our central
office staff is able to celebrate
Mass as a central office more
often and the experience is predictably uplifting.
Chief Deputy Superintendent, Gary Chiste, reported
that this year new teachers have
been doing very well, and he is
very happy with their performance. On the other hand, recruiting out-of-province this year
has been challenging. They have
pre-interviewed fewer candidates
than normal, yet the quality of
these candidates has been strong.
On a positive note, recruiting at
the Alberta universities is strong,
and, when available, Alberta graduates are CTR’ Catholic’s preferred choice.
Associate Superintendent,
Dr. Bonnie Annicchiarico,
announced that the Council of
School Councils has established a
parent leadership group with an
interest in supporting CTR’=
Catholic’s efforts in Catholic
education. An initial area of interest is the human sexuality component of the new Wellness
curriculum under development.
It’s important for the topic of
human sexuality to be taught via
the Catholic worldview and
Catholic teachings. Another
leadership group being formed is
a focus group of teachers to
explore issues related to the
education of First Nations, Métis,
and Inuit students. CTR Catholic
is committed to issues related to
both awareness and reconciliation.
Financial Literacy and Skills for Life
Junior Achievement
“There are many
program skills that are
employed, including
critical thinking,
communicating, selfassessment, organizing
information, and crosscurricular competencies.
‘World of Choices’, a
local Career Fair will be
another endeavor that
they look forward to
sharing.”
The Board received an update
on several programs highlighted
in CTR Catholic’s Three Year
Education Plan. JoAnne Akerboom, Principal of St. Anthony’s
School, and Gail Smith, a grade
six teacher at St. Anthony’s
School, shared their experience
working with students in the
Junior Achievement Program,
which inspires young people to
be successful in a global community. Financial literacy, work
preparedness, and entrepreneurial skills are the established hallmarks of the program. To her
credit, Mrs. Smith added a faith
component, focusing especially
on developing Catholic virtues
and donating some of the profits
to the community.
St. Anthony’s will be embarking
on a pilot project called A Business of Our Own in the near future. Another program, operated in conjunction with Olds
College or Red Deer College, is
called Economics for Success.
This involves hands on activities
that introduce personal finance
and budgeting. These activities
develop skills in critical thinking, communicating, selfassessment, organizing information, and cross-curricular
competencies. St. Anthony’s
also looks forward to participating in World of Choices, a
local career fair for students.
A Business Partnership with
Alberta Treasury Branch, called
Junior ATB, involves students
creating and maintaining their
own savings accounts right at
the school.
The enthusiasm of our St. Anthony’s presenters was practically contagious, as they shared
how passionately their kids are
engaged in these hands-on
enterprises.
On a related note, Cheryl
Kuemper, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, shared
information on the Learning
Partnership. It is a charitable
organization, fostering hands
on experiential learning opportunities.
It is represented through three
programs: Coding Quest, Entrepreneurial Adventure, and Investigate! Invent! Innovate!, all of
which help students to develop
skills that can promote success
in business and life. As an example, last year students from
Holy Spirit Academy developed
and marketed eco-bins for
composting. They donated
their profits to charity.
The Board was thoroughly
impressed with these presentations and had many questions
for the presenters.
Page 3
Many Great Things Happen in Our Communities
The communities of Okotoks,
High River, Brooks, and Oyen
hosted Ward meetings since the
last Board meeting. The minutes
with more detail are always attached to the Board Meeting
agenda on our website, but a few
highlights are noted below. The
local Trustees are now opting to
highlight one noteworthy item
from each of our four pillars at
the monthly meeting:
Okotoks Ward I:
Faith: Father Luciano is a breath
of fresh air, making excellent efforts to be involved in the
schools.
Learning: St. Mary’s School has
adopted a program called One
Book, One School. It has all K-6
students adopting one book to
read and includes family activities.
The school council provides the
books.
Safe and Caring: At Holy Trinity
Academy, baking at Christmas –
by parents, for staff – is a tradition
that has been very popular. This
year, the administration suggested
donating gift cards instead, that
they could pay forward to needy
families. They received $1700
worth of gift cards, plus a lot of
baking that they could share. At
St. John Paul II Collegiate, over
450 backpacks were filled with
necessities such as food, clothes,
and toiletries that were donated
to homeless individuals and persons in need.
Stewardship of Resources: at St.
Francis of Assisi Academy, a great
example of the sharing of one’s
time: they typically have 40 parents per meeting at School Council, and the meetings are very faith
filled. École Good Shepherd
School has spent considerable
time sharing the news of their
new report card. It has been received warmly.
Okotoks Ward II (The Centre for Learning@HOME):
Faith: Camp Evergreen Retreat :
over 100 kids from grades 9-12
participated in Outdoor Education and Faith Building experiences.
izing and fundraising for the school.
Learning: We stand out with a
Diploma participation rate of
98.6%!
Learning: The school population
“The local
is 60% English Language Learners,
but the SIOP program, and exTrustees are
traordinary effort by students and
staff resulted in academic
now opting to
achievement in the top 25% of
highlight one
the province last year.
Safe and Caring: A preChristmas magazine subscription
program raised money for clothing, gift cards etc., to help eight
families.
Stewardship of Resources: In a
recent meeting with Alberta Education, the department had an
opportunity to see the excellent
programs our school has to offer,
and their response was very positive.
High River:
Faith: The local community is
blessed and very happy to have
Father Hagel as our new Pastor.
He makes himself very available,
and is enthusiastic in our schools.
Learning: Provincial Achievement
Test results at Holy Spirit Academy results are in the top 5% of
the province. They are especially
proud of the significant portion of
their population who speak English as a second language, and still
achieve stellar results.
Safe and Caring: Learning blocks
at Notre Dame Collegiate have
been a very successful innovation
that promotes academic success,
and the selection of courses are
intrinsically motivating.
Stewardship of Resources: Staff
and students are looking forward
to the final development this
spring of the track behind Notre
Dame Collegiate. At Holy Spirit
Academy the Parent Council has
done a phenomenal job of organ-
Brooks:
Faith: Adopting families for Christmas was a very successful venture
that helped to bring a little extra joy
to some in need.
Safe and Caring: Catholic education in Brooks is coming up on
20 years, and we are hopeful for
the new Bishop to come celebrate and bless the new facility.
noteworthy
item from
each of our
four pillars.”
Stewardship of Resources: We
run a successful and much needed breakfast program for kids at
Holy Family Academy, in conjunction
with Grasslands School Division.
Close to $10,000 was raised at the
October fundraiser – it was a huge
success.
Oyen:
Faith: Thirteen students are preparing for confirmation in Grades 6-9 –
a significant number in our small
community.
Learning: The Pass rate last year for
Provincial Achievement Tests placed
Assumption School in the top 5% of
all schools in the province.
Safe and Caring: Our efforts at
communicating and celebrating our
school have paid off - in reaping the
success of several new registrations.
Stewardship of Resources: In Oyen
we continue to follow the Prairie
Rose School Division calendar, as we
are dependent upon their bussing.
Vision of the Board
Page 4
The truth of Christ and knowledge of God’s creation will be experienced
by and manifest in the students, staff, parents, and supporters of our
Catholic School Community.
1 McRae Street, Box 1318
Okotoks, AB
T1S 1B3
Phone: 403.938.2659
Fax: 403.938.4575
E-mail: [email protected].
Trustees’ Corner by Harry Salm
www.redeemer.ab.ca.
Each month, a different trustee
shares a reflection on an article
of interest. Please find Trustee
Harry Salm’s reflection below.
A Trustee’s Opinion
We, as a Board, are blessed to
be your trustees.
Harry Salm, Trustee
for Strathmore and
area
Our Catholic faith permeates,
and is alive within our school
board and our school division.
In our schools, when they are
empty, evidence of our faith is
everywhere. In Strathmore,
Sacred Heart Parish uses our
schools for daily and Sunday
Mass. We must enter through
the Doors of Mercy and pass
by the Stations of the Cross,
the crucifixes, the religious
posters, the murals, the written
prayers, and the seasonal visual
presentations.
When our schools are in session, the evidence is always
right in front of us. The teachers, staff, and students embody
the Catholic virtues while interacting with each other and
visitors. For those without
children in the school, it would
be the recognizable teachers
and staff who are part of our
Parish ministries. Another vital
part is our administrators who
lead our schools by carrying
the Catholic torch in everything they do whether its welcoming the public, discussions,
or in meetings.
Our division office presents the
essence of our Catholicity
when you walk in the doors.
Our senior administrators and
staff walk in the path of our
Lord with every consideration,
every direction, and every action taken. They bring a wealth
of knowledge, experience, and
faith to guide us in our deliberations and to the operation of
our division.
Our trustees individually, and
our Board collectively, bring
the intentions, the virtues, and
knowledge of our Catholic
faith. We, as trustees, are all at
different places in our faith
journey but respect each other’s conviction to ensuring that
the Catholic faith is a foundation in each and every decision
we make.
In my humble opinion, our
trustees are ordinary people
who, while living their faith
within ordinary lives, endeavor
to provide leadership to ensure
our faith will be “experienced
by and manifest in” everyone
involved in or exposed to our
division, toward an extraordinary experience.
God bless all of you,
Harry Salm, Trustee for Strathmore and area
Remember that Trustee biographies are available on CTR’s
website at: http://
www.redeemer.ab.ca/
Trustees.php
Next Board Meeting Date
The next Board meeting will take place on Thursday, February 16, 2017, at Christ The
Redeemer Catholic Education Centre, Okotoks, AB.
For any information on items in this publication, please contact Associate Superintendent Mr. Michael Kilcommons at [email protected] or at 403-938-2659.