Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024

Another successful Indigenous Youth Council Gives Back

After last year’s incredible success with the Necessities Drive, the Indigenous Youth Circle, in partnership with the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre and the Anishinabek Police Service (APS), held a Stuff the Cruiser fundraiser.

The Indigenous Youth Circle is a student organization comprised of Indigenous students from all Near North District School Board (NNDSB) secondary schools. Over the last two months, the Indigenous youth at six secondary schools across the board held various fundraisers to collect money and toys to donate to the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre for their holiday gift-giving.

Indigenous Student Trustee Riley Trudeau and NNDSB’s Indigenous Lead Kelly Nootchtai Huston joined Sgt. Chantal Larocque, Const. Justin McLeod and Const. JP Spence at the Sturgeon Falls Canadian Tire, where they collected toys and monetary donations from customers.  Over the two days, while also handing out popcorn and raffling an APS hoodie, stuffed police dog and maple syrup that was donated by a local business owner, they stuffed an entire APS truck with toys, as well as raising more than $1,282.

Stuff the Cruiser event culminated on Dec. 12, when Student Trustee Riley Trudeau and Dokis First Nation student Jacob Restoule hopped in APS cruisers driven by Sgt. Larocque and Const. McLeod. Joining them in the back seats were Indigenous Education Coordinator Amanda Mathias and Indigenous Lead Kelly Nootchtai Huston. They visited five of the six secondary schools to collect their donations and completed their travels at the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre.

Along with a $1,000 donation from Dokis First Nation and the monies procured at Canadian Tire, more than $4000 was raised.

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Monday, Nov. 25, 2024

Artists to battle it out at Parry Sound High School’s first Art War event

Local artists are getting ready to battle it out in Parry Sound High School’s (PSHS) new fundraising event Art War!

The exciting evening of entertainment will see Parry Sound students and alumni go head-to-head in a live art-making competition judged by the audience. Attendees will enjoy a delicious meal catered by the PSHS hospitality department while they watch artists create artwork right in front of them.

Artists will participate in a three-round elimination contest until one artist is left standing. In the first-round participants are tasked with creating a still life or portrait, round two is a landscape painting and the final round is freestyle where those remaining can play to their strength and let their imaginations run wild. Participating artist specialties range from ink portraitists and watercolour painters to street artists.

After each round, the audience browses the art and then votes for their favourites with their phones through a QR code found at each table.

Proceeds from the event will go towards replenishing the whole school collaborative event account.

PSHS visual arts teacher Melissa Beasley said the account is used to fund large scale collaborative events at the school such as full-scale musical productions, the One-Of-A-Kind show and even events like Art War.

“Art War was in collaboration with business leadership students, the arts council and hospitality students,” Beasley said. “Hospitality students will cater the dinner, business leadership students are handling the marketing, advertising and are event organizers. Arts council is creating the venue design and selling tickets. They will also staff the event, waiting on tables, ticketing at the door, selling art, and managing the artists.”

PSHS hospitality students will be serving a gourmet four-course meal. Hospitality teacher Blair Cousins said the dinner starts with a ravioli with spinach and fresh ricotta followed by Caesar salad and lasagne with garlic bread as the main course. The dessert will be a cranberry tart.

“Students have been working on perfecting the tart and ravioli for weeks,” Cousins said.

Art War will take place on Thursday, Nov. 28 at 6 p.m. at Parry Sound High School. Tickets are $40 per person and can be purchased by emailing Melissa.Beasley@nearnorthschools.ca or David.Wigney@nearnorthschools.ca.

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Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024

NNDSB first to offer senior virtual Indigenous language courses to students across Ontario through eLearning Consortium

Near North District School Board (NNDSB) is offering a first-of-its-kind opportunity for secondary school students through the Ontario eLearning Consortium (OeLC). Students in the 56 school boards who are members of the OeLC can now earn upper-level Indigenous language credits through the virtual courses offered by NNDSB.

Previously, Level C and D Ojibwe language courses have only been offered through in-person learning. However, due to timetable conflict, students often faced the difficult task of having to select courses that are pre-requisites for post-graduation opportunities over language. Starting in January 2025, the availability of the courses through e-learning eliminates the issue of timetable conflicts, low enrolment, and potential course cancelation. This is not only a benefit to students in NNDSB, but across the province.

NNDSB teacher Falcon McLeod, who will be teaching the online courses, explained that a crucial aspect of learning Ojibwe is to gain proficiency in navigating resources (such as dictionaries and grammar resources of various dialects). The online courses NNDSB offers can inspire and support students in their learning experience and language learning goals.

McLeod has developed meaningful and authentic course content that can be used effectively to reach more students. With his dedication and focus to language revitalization, he supports the employment of strategies and resources that can best support language learners.

McLeod’s Nishnaabe name is Nishnaabemwin Bemwidood which means Keeper of the Language, and so, he has been learning the language since the age of five. He sought out every opportunity available to study Ojibwe while in school and studied with many notable language instructors along the way. The real turning point in his language education came when he attended his first immersion camp Ojibwemotaadidaa Omaa Gidakiiminaang (OOG) in Cloquet, Minnesota.

“Ever since that experience, I have been slowly trying to emulate all those experiences in my home community of Nipissing First Nation and recreate several of those resources in the Nipissing dialect,” McLeod said. “These resources have ultimately become what I use to teach Ojibwe in my classes and plans for future materials.”

The courses build on learned skills from week to week. McLeod said students will cover one grammar concept per week and the following week will build on that knowledge in a way that has students learning Ojibwe at an exponential rate.

“For example, first week we introduce a set of nouns to be the actors for our sentences. The next week we have those same nouns doing actions and that’s how we introduce verbs,” McLeod said. “From there we introduce commands, then prepositional phrases, etc. Within about four lessons we’ve gone from no language knowledge to nearly story-telling abilities in Ojibwe.”

Each lesson consists of a pre-recorded video of the in-class lesson available on YouTube, a PowerPoint presentation from the video going over the lesson, a worksheet to get learners situated and aware of what to do for the work and an opportunity for them to seek help. Students also receive audio files of McLeod speaking Ojibwe at regular and slow speeds for learners to transcribe and translate.

“Upon entering the online classes and following along attentively with the materials I share, students can go from no awareness of the Nipissing dialect to being able to express conservatively hundreds of thousands of sentences in Ojibwe with one out of four types of the verb classes,” McLeod said.

“At NNDSB, we recognize the importance of Indigenous language revitalization and preservation, in fulfilling the Calls to Action related to language and in forwarding Truth and Reconciliation,” said Sarah Spence, NNDSB Principal of Student Achievement and Well-Being. “The board is situated on the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory, specifically on the lands of seven Anishinaabe First Nations. We are honoured to have exceptional language holders who can offer such calibre of language teachings to not only students in NNDSB, but across all of Ontario.”

Students from across the province that are interested in registering for the courses can do so through their school guidance departments.

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Friday, Nov. 15, 2024

Week spotlights anti-racism education and new Bullying Prevention Plan

Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week occurs Nov. 18-22, 2024, and all schools across Near North District School Board will actively participate in this annual event.

Racist and discriminatory actions and words continue to increase across the  province, which is evident in schools. As a result, NNDSB’s Safe Schools team has identified the theme Call It Out for this year’s Bullying Awareness and Prevention week. The focus will be on providing skills for students and staff to identify and define racism and discrimination, as well as develop the skills needed to feel confident in calling it out when it occurs.

The Safe Schools team works with local and provincial partners to curate meaningful content for students that is tailored to provide specific, developmentally appropriate safety information for all students from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

The North Bay Battalion continue to support NNDSB in cultivating safe, inclusive and welcoming spaces through video resources, school visits, and game spotlights. The Vincent Massey choir will be singing the national anthem at the Battalion game on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024.

The North Bay Police Service, in partnership with Amelia Rising, is providing anti-human trafficking education to Grade 11 and 12 students at West Ferris and Chippewa Secondary Schools. Provincial and local experts will increase awareness of human trafficking and its impact on communities, educate students on how to identify the signs of human trafficking, empower students to become advocates for awareness and prevention, and provide resources for further education and involvement in combatting this issue.

Pink Shirt Day occurs on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. All staff and students are encouraged to wear pink to show that they pledge to call out bullying, racism or discrimination when they see it.

Harmony Movement will be providing a parent workshop entitled Words Matter. The workshop will be held virtually on Tuesday, Nov. 19, starting at 6:30 p.m. Participants will examine and understand how children are exposed to harmful and discriminatory language, practice how to respond to discriminatory language in a range of scenarios, and identify actions they can take to promote a culture of acceptance, respect, and understanding in all of our schools. Parents, caregivers, and community members can register here. Parry Sound High School will also be hosting a watch-party for those in the West Region. Join them at 6 p.m. for pizza and stay for the in-person watch party by registering here.

NNDSB is also happy to share an updated Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan, which supports Safe and Accepting School Teams with a blueprint for creating student-centred plans that are tailored to the in-year needs of the students within the school.

Through these partnerships we can model citizenship for our students and demonstrate the power of coming together as a community to create safer spaces. “Presentations given by experts, role models, and community members allow us to make the content even more meaningful for our students,” said Principal of Safe Schools, Emily Samuel. “Our partners provide relevant and responsive knowledge that support our students’ development of personal safety and positive citizenship,” she added.

The Safe Schools team appreciates the work that all staff, parents and community members do to support inclusivity in our schools and neighborhoods. We encourage everyone to call out racism, discrimination and bullying when they see it to create safe spaces for all.

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Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024

Chair and Vice acclaimed at annual organizational meeting

The trustees of Near North District School Board (NNDSB) met Tuesday night for their annual organizational meeting.

Indigenous Trustee Ashley St. Pierre and Zone 4 Trustee Howard Wesley were acclaimed as the Board’s Chair and Vice-Chair respectively, positions they held last year. They will serve for the third year of the Board’s four-year term. The 2022-2026 Board of Trustees is composed of these trustees.

Chair St. Pierre was nominated by Trustee Bill Steer, and Vice-Chair Wesley was nominated by Trustee Jeanie Fuscaldo.

Following her acclamation, Chair St. Pierre thanked Trustee Steer for the nomination, and said, “It’s been an honour to learn the work. I look forward to another year of working with everyone.”

Similarly, Vice-Chair Wesley thanked Trustee Fuscaldo for the nomination, and said he looks forward to continuing the work of the Board.

Membership of trustees to the Board’s various committees was also determined and approved at last night’s meeting.

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Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024

Sundridge Centennial Public School to create Halloween community hub with Trunk or Treat event

Halloween in Northern Ontario is often subject to whims of Mother Nature with trick-or-treating sometimes looking more like Christmas caroling.

Last year, cold weather and snow forced some trick-or-treaters to end the Halloween fun early. It was with this in mind that Sundridge Centennial Public School (SCPS) staff and parent council decided to open up the school to the community on Halloween with Sundridge’s first ever Trunk or Treat event.

SCPS Principal Jill Cooper said, “The school should act as the critical part of the community. When identifying needs that best support our community and our students, we should act creating a reasonable solution. We identified the need for a warming station and washroom in this area of town to benefit those out for the evening.”

Principal Cooper and the parent council then leaned into the school’s role as a critical part of the community by expanding the initial idea to include serving hot chocolate and creating a safe space for kids and a Halloween hub for the community.

Parent Council Deputy Chair JP Bressan proposed creating a venue for rural community members to participate and enjoy Halloween by creating a Trunk or Treat in the SCPS parking lot. Rural community members are invited to fill the trunks of their cars with Halloween candy they would ordinarily not have the opportunity to give out and congregate in town at the more centrally-located school. Visitors can now warm up, use the restroom, enjoy hot chocolate, and trick or treat all at one convenient location.

“Many of our rural community members do not get to experience trick-or-treaters. They want to show support and enjoy seeing the young community members dressed up, excitedly enjoying the evening,” Cooper said. “A Trunk or Treat provides an opportunity to connect all community members making a safe and enjoyable evening for all.”

Student volunteers from Almaguin Highlands Secondary School, the OPP, Sundridge Strong Volunteer Fire Fighters, Town Councilor Sharon Smith, Mayor Justine Leveque and the Village of Sundridge recreation committee will be present at this event and are all contributing their time and effort to organizing and managing the event.

“Community members are invited to come and bring Halloween treats. We respectfully request they provide prepackaged and labeled treats that have been manufactured in a nut-free facility to ensure we are following the school’s anaphylaxis guidelines,” Cooper said. “Those participating will park in the school parking lot with their trunks open and treats ready for children to visit and show off their costumes.”

Community members interested in participating can contact Principal Cooper at the school 705-472-5101 ext. 8023 to register before Oct. 25.

The event will run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on October 31st.

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Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024

NNDSB system principal Emily Samuel appointed as executive member of Ontario Principals’ Council

Near North District School Board (NNDSB) is proud to recognize the appointment of Principal Emily Samuel as an executive member of the Ontario Principals’ Council (OPC). She was appointed to a member-at-large position and will serve for the 2024-2025 school year.

OPC represents more than 5,400 principals and vice-principals in public education districts across the province. As an executive member, Samuel will support OPC in achieving its mission of developing, supporting and promoting exemplary leadership for student success in our schools. Prior to this year, Samuel served as an elected provincial councillor with OPC.

“Having the opportunity to work as an executive member means so much to me because it provides another opportunity to positively influence public education,” Samuel said. “Changing education from the inside out is my goal and thanks to this opportunity with OPC, I will have a deeper understanding of the systemic issues that exist provincially and how we might develop solutions to address them. I am passionate about developing creative pathways that will allow all students to achieve success in school.”

Samuel works as a system principal with NNDSB and holds responsibility in the safe schools, early years and leadership development portfolios.

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