 We're part of Calgary Catholic School District with 54,000 students, almost 110 schools next year and over 5,000 staff and that's why we have so many with us today. We want to tell our story from St. Timothy's perspective and it's been a real interesting journey. I know the team last year set the stage for us to better respond to the students in our building and not just students first nation students but all students and one of the things I want to focus on today is good practice is good practice and meeting kids where they're at is what we need to do in all cases so we've seen some success around that but before I go too far I just want to introduce the team here to present to you today we have Susie Olson who's one of our LA teachers Susie can raise your hand where is she over there oh hey Susie's in the back we couldn't even get around the stage there's so many of us. Keith Rueche is our trades he's our welding and our woods gentleman he works with the kids in the shop and we've had a lot of impact with our students in that regard. We have Laurie Mayer who's our foods and fashion teacher and we're doing a lot of cultural type activities in the foods lab the nice part of about that is not only for the kids that are getting to create the beadwork and such but the other kids being exposed to the traditions the the first nations traditions which we're really proud of. Next we have Laurie Brakespear who's our literacy lead and she's one of our diverse learning teachers and with her elementary junior high background we are in a high school setting she was able to see really quickly that many of our students were you know having gaps in their education especially in the area of literacy so she's going to talk to you a little bit about how we focus on literacy and how that is the key to students futures and we've had grade 10 grade 11 kids that sometimes are reading at a grade two three level and sometimes we find them in high school classes and then we wonder why their attendance drops and they're not engaged so really being purposeful in how we actually connect with kids being flexible and trying to understand them. Trish Kanifani is one of our educational assistants and she's the lady that helps us with with food and as we know food is very much more than just food it's about welcoming people into our community so we started a very comprehensive food program everyone thinks there's a lot of money out in Cochrane but you'd be surprised the amount of kids that do not come to school each day fed and without fuel they don't go too long during the day and they can't learn. Wanda First Rider is our culture liaison from the district Wanda Wanda works with all of the students in Calgary Catholic and many of you know Wanda I had the privilege of running into her brother this morning and I don't even think he knew she was coming today so it's a chance for you guys to reconnect. Cindy Stephanato she's our consultant First Nations FMI consultant and Cindy brings a perspective to our large district around residential schools and some of the teachings her grandmother shared with her and I believe that's the team I want to talk a little Susan McClellan how can I forget Susan she's the longtime counselor who has this window into Stony Nakota and she's built such amazing relationships with many of our students and we know that it's through relationships that we are allowed to do the work we do. The kids don't trust us they don't want to be a part of the school and the conversation so she's done a fabulous job in that area and she's going to talk to you a little bit about her strategies and some of the support she provides not just to our First Nations students but to all students. So I want to talk to you a little bit about our journey. Last year was sort of laying the groundwork and the big part for us was what are we going to do to embrace our students coming from Stony Nakota and you know the team last year this is my first year at the school had done some wonderful work in embracing strategies that we're really opening the door to kids meeting them where they're at and I really want you to keep that in mind one of the things through high school redesign we're looking at this year is flexibility in meeting kids where they're at that is our focus this year and they're going to speak a little bit more to how we do that. We want an authentic educational experience we want to acknowledge the history we also want to have the bar set high so students can graduate and be successful creating a community inclusive to all students and you know easier said than done sometimes we know that kids sometimes can be mean to other kids and it's usually a lack of knowledge it's some of the perceptions they have so lots of what we do is dispelling myths and actually making sure that students are held accountable to be respectful of each other and that's a big part of our Catholic community as well as just you know learning spiritually some of the things our First Nations teachers teach us here at the school. High school redesign I talked about well this is a new endeavor for us I know there's some folks in this room that probably have a lot more experience in this area but really high school redesign is something that the Alberta Albert education is looking and it's you know our district is full force on this really about meeting kids where they're at how do we engage kids so they can be successful how do we modify how do we accommodate how do we explore new strategies so kids can be met where they're at and go forward and be successful it's about creating success together and then finally you know one of the things we really thought a lot about and last year I think it started with the cultural piece but is looking at the spiritual social emotional academic and the wellness needs of all students and you're going to hear the team talk about that I think it's really important that we are specific in those areas because failure to focus on any one will not give us the opportunity to be successful in any of it so and again I started with good practice is good practice you're going to hear those stories today and I'm going to pass it over to Trish I'm just going to fire through my slides and like Solange said you'll get these slides a little later but I covered most of what's on here so miss can if any please come forward thank you great part of will be in six okay so I've been with Calgary Catholic District for a long time this is my first year at st Timothy's when I came this year I noticed that many of our students were not eating breakfast in some cases because of their very long bus commute that they would have so we observed that obviously this impacted negatively the students ability to focus on their studies we started a small program at first to see the response from the students would be by providing just some easy to eat food items we put out a basket and in the basket we'd have simple things we'd have apples and bananas and then cobs bread and Cochran would donate to us foods such as muffins and sweet breads that sort of thing pastries the response from the students was very positive they loved it and would express what they liked and didn't like and what they wanted to see in the basket the next day from an educational perspective teachers noticed a difference in the students focus and energy in the classroom almost immediately and they they commented on that a lot from this another positive outcome has been the improved attendance for many of the students as well as meeting a basic need obviously the food symbolized a coming together it was sort of a celebration of the beginning of the day a start of the day it was a really nice way for them to start at St. Timothy's we continue to engage the Cochran community and most recently we have volunteers from St. Mary's Parish who've started coming into our school twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays providing a hot breakfast to the kids so they might come in with a crock pot with hot oatmeal porridge that sort of thing and the kids love it all right thank you next we're going to just touch on literacy and get into the curriculum and the cultural aspects hi good morning i'm lori and as Steve mentioned i'm one of the diverse learning teachers at St. Timothy's school um this year we've taken on as a school sorry this year we've taken on as a school and for an initiative to improve literacy overall with all of the kids in September when the year began we we started by looking at the lists of diverse learners that we had and the kids that were currently struggling quickly realized that um there was a there was a need in the school across all areas and all grade levels with all kids coming into the building and being my first year here i was told that it has been increasing the kids coming in there was more and more need and then it was evident that there needed to be um a program designed specifically to to address those needs so the program that we established we we started is um is the fontes and penel literacy intervention system which some of you may be familiar with it is it's a district approved resource and one that's um quite highly suggested to be used throughout the district typically and and initially it's more of uh was more of an elementary program but as its popularity has grown and in the success they've had with it they've since rolled out more components to the program that's designed that would design specifically for kids um div 2 and up so grade 6 through 12 so we were very fortunate in our school at St. Timothy to um get a hold up for lack of a better word uh great amounts of these resources that we could start in uh this program how it looked was as i had mentioned we took the diverse learner list and then as the weeks in school began to unfold there were more and more names coming forward of children that could look like they could use this support in reading reading comprehension writing and and cross language in general so logistically it wasn't without its struggles in terms of how you how you implement a reading intervention program within a junior high high school setting because you have scheduling that's vastly different looks vastly different than in an elementary classroom so uh having said that we spent some time we worked at some kinks some kinks still to be worked out the program is designed to be a small group intensive reading intervention program for kids who are um two and three grade levels below where they're uh where their same age peers are um it's designed to be in a perfect world four or five days a week and in in some cases i have several groups that do just that it has grown um such that i have three support staff members at school who are also offering these groups and we see students from grade seven straight through to grade 11 uh and the kids are grouped uh specifically on their reading level where they are so there was lots of pre-work doing uh assessments and evaluating kids and finding out where they best where they were best grouped and so we schedule it such that the kids aren't coming so much out of math and an order of science and trying to accommodate them as best they can so that they're not they can reap the rewards of having a um small group intensive intervention program without it affect further affecting the rest of their academics by missing more class time so we have probably we have currently maybe 15 groups of three or four or five students going on throughout the building on any given day at our school some of the successes that we have seen aren't aren't just within my group and within the other staff members groups in terms of the objective the objectives changes that we see and increase in their reading levels it it spans across all of their all of their courses and in all of their classes teaches are noticing more engagement more confidence um it's evident that the kids need this that it's valuable and um very useful for all of them not just first nation students because the group includes kids from all different parts of the building and all different communities so it's something that I think that it's in its infancy really at the school and we'd like to see it grow even even further like I said there are some some logistics that we still have to work out but overall it's been it's been a great success the kids really really enjoy coming to the program there's lots of discussion around it the information that the kids learn not just in terms of word study and improving comprehension of what they're reading but just the material that the the resources offer so it's really really nice to see and we hope that we're just going to continue to build on that and and work towards you know growing that program in whatever way we can so part of what Laurie wants to maybe share just quickly if you read these are some of the students uh testimonials and it's just nice to hear from the kids you know it's one thing that to think we're doing a great job but to hear from them and you know just how empowering it has been for our students in all grades in all classes so Susie maybe you could just speak to this about those writing folders quickly I know you're at the back of the room and I'm going to throw you under the bus here but she came up with such a creative idea in regards to how we engage kids and uh I'm just gonna ask her just quickly to speak to it so we'll go with that good morning I teach junior high so I probably don't need a microphone so one of the things that we looked at and I think that this is what speaks to with the literacy program is how do we continue to weave in the culture for our students and for the benefit of all students and so I've found a lot of resources through a few different companies and native reflections that we've been able to weave in and find funding for again just to help all of our students get a better understanding of the culture and as a representation throughout our building that these students and their history does matter to us and it's important to share all those strengths with the other students in our building so we now do have some pretty beautiful I will say writing folders that cover the regular curriculum in terms of the expectations but they have some wonderful pieces of the culture interwoven with them and it's really made a difference in terms of the students feeling more welcomed even just in their regular classroom so again just a few more perspectives from students and just you know testimonials are so important for us to determine if we're actually meeting the need you know it's so nice when kids say to you you know I see a lot more stuff going around my culture being shared in the school and I see the other kids understanding me better and you know it's all about building that community so it's really been an exciting endeavor and a lot of in a lot of cases you know it's kids driving this too we use the tell them for me survey like many school districts and if the kids tell us they want more of this and we're trying to do everything we can to be receptive to that and build it into our school plans and elsewhere so I'm going to call Miss McClelland up Susan Susan's our counselor she's been at St. Timothy's I won't tell him any years but for a very long time and she shares a very unique perspective on supporting our kids in all uh well in all cultures good morning the drum song this morning talked about honor as a way of living I think I have the privilege of working with a group of people the adults and the children in the building who do that honoring and a special privilege to work with our First Nations children I am well supported by our DL team I am well supported by Amber Dawn who's a district person family liaison not able to be with us this morning also by Wanda part of our cultural support team of course that men and all of our staff and as Steve mentioned I get to that window into Stoning Dakota that continues to lift its blinds to me every day in lots of conversations with the young people and now more and more this year with their families their mums and their dads are feeling much more welcome in our school and they come in they cut they they drop in even though it may be an hour away some of our young people catch that bus at five to six in the morning the other thing that happens for them is the Stoning Dakota nation that we certainly notice for our young people who said that their lives continue to be impacted by tragedies within the nation and how every family is linked to every other family and then when they call someone a sister or cousin or a grandparent I know when I ask them my understanding of that they kind of look at me and think well what do you mean why you're asking that question some of the things we've done in terms of pathways for success are we've worked with the NAPI program at University of Calvary the Native Ambassador post-secondary initiative our young people were involved with that next year we're looking at bringing in the trade swing program which is the first nation apprenticeship program we're also looking as we have grad in a couple weeks here we have representatives from our Cree Nation the Stoney Nation Stoney peoples and the Métis who will be recognized at our grad and also looking ahead for next year we're looking at feeling that we need to access more our post-secondary people and the other thing we're looking at is certainly just I'm we're not sure a program certainly that involves part of outreach and more in terms of making our of even honoring our first nation children more thank you the next piece I'm just going to call Wanda first writer forward and Cindy if you'd like to join Wanda and just talk about some of the cultural pieces that we bring into the school and how that's engaged our students and made them feel welcome so I'm just going to pass it over to these ladies okay good morning I'm a mustache I work with all of the um treaty seven tribes the Métis and the Inuit students within the Catholic school district and I'm out at St. Timothy two days a week and I always tell my colleagues from St. Timothy that I feel I always feel welcome and I feel that our FNMI students are in good hands at that school I've been working with uh uh Nikoda students for quite a number of years I work at also work at the junior on the elementary school at Holy Spirit and I've uh walked with the elementary students to junior high and high school at St. Timothy some of these students I've known since they were in um grade two and worked in the Catholic school district for 29 years throughout the years that I've been working at St. Timothy we've brought in speakers from the Stoney Nikoda and I see Sykes powder face here he's one of the resource people that we've brought into the school and he shared their way of life with St. Timothy school when I work with the students we've done numerous um projects together when I meet with the students I ask them what do you want to do the school year and at the beginning of the year we have a list that we go through and um we cross out things that we can do and some of the things that we can't do last year we focused on um pow wow dance and I don't know if some of you know me but I come from a pow wow family and my family is quite successful in the pow wow world and um so these students knew that and wanted me to help them to learn the pow wow so we did that last year and it was quite successful this year we changed our focus and we are working we're doing pow wow regalia making and I was I went to the principal and Susan here and I told them I'd like to start a program for the students but I'd like the students to get their credits high school credits for them without hesitation Mr. P told me go talk to Susan let's do it and Susan filled out the forms and the students that are doing the regalia making are earning high school credits for regalia making which I was really happy about so for the and this is the kind of um um work that I do with the school they don't hesitate when I ask them when I'm voicing the students needs they're always willing to try something new for the girls that I'm working with we're doing um fancy dance jingle and traditional regalia making and what I did with the girls is we smudged I brought in their family members and their family members shared the meaning of the various dance styles that we were making um what I shared with them was what I know from um the various dance um dance areas and um what I intertwined into the dance the regalia making is the cultural and the spiritual part of our our way of dance I also share with the girls in our group their role as women and they share with me and teach me a lot of their way of life as stony nicota my way of working with these students is um I build a lot of relationship with these students and I make it a point to call their families and get to know their families and as I mentioned I've uh worked with a lot of them since they were in grade two so I know many of the families from stony nicota and I teach them blackfoot and they teach me stony and they laugh and they say oh you sound like washita no and they laugh and I tell them will you say this in blackfoot and they say this they tell me I tell them oh you sound like napikwan that's the white people so we we laugh and we share we learn words from stony nicota and they learn blackfoot words from me I really enjoy working with these students they know a lot about their way of life and um they share a lot um another project that we worked on this year was um a couple of the grade eight students went to their gym teacher and said that they would like to teach their grade eight class to dance and again without hesitation the gym teacher said that he would be happy to do that so we I found a video on um youtube called pow wow sweat and I showed the girls and they were very very um excited about it so last thursday we did um pow wow sweat with the grade eight class and um the grade eight students were really enthused about it and um the girls that taught the class shared their way of life their dance their language with their fellow fellow students and those are just a few of the things that we do at st. james city stephenautos our consultant and she's got the district perspective just going to share a few things that i'm going to call uh mr ruji up and miss merritt finish good morning everyone um as steve was saying i have our district perspective because i work for instructional services so um first i just wanted to apologize my supervisor was planning to be here this morning but he had um some a family challenge he lost somebody close to his family recently so he wasn't he wasn't able to attend but he really wanted to come um so i'm just quickly going to tell you um sort of what our support looks like for st timothy um what happens is we have requests for support come in and i personally look through them to determine which team would best be able to support our students to make sure that we have wraparound service for all of our students we deploy staff so wanda and amberdon who's the in-home support worker who's assigned to st tim come from our department so we have taken a look at st tim and determined that they could use that support so we put them into st tim so that we can support them the best way that we can um we do a lot of consultative work so we communicate quite a bit with the school they'll give us a shout and just say you know here's kind of what's happening what do you think might be an approach that we might be able to take and how do we be culturally sensitive about this and that sort of thing so we just try to support them the best that we can in those ways what i love about a relationship is that it's very interactive so we communicate quite a bit and we talk about what their needs are versus what our needs are and try to find a way to meet in the middle so that we can best support the kids because in the end we try to do just what's best for kids i'm going to hand you off to miss ma'am and mr ru j this is a new initiative this year it's been an exciting opportunity and we think of the trades and the opportunities that exist for some of our students they're going to just tell the specialized things they've been doing in their classrooms and we'll end there okay thank you i just have a couple of stories to tell you today on the fashion scene and as well as the food scene so in fashions wanda approached me at the beginning of the year and said she had two students interested in making regalia and i agreed and then i just i had no idea was it a dress was it a costume um i so for me it's been a learning experience as much as it has been for the children um so just on the in the curriculum area of ctf with the new curriculum um career and technology foundations for the junior highs um i usually allowed my students to do one major project that is of importance to them so one of the students had decided the regalia was going to be her major project and she just got really into sewing and one day her parents showed up her sister showed up at school they just wanted to know where she goes every day to do this sewing and she ended up sewing um pennies that were wrecked for the gym she ended up sewing um costumes for the christmas play so just like the change that i'd seen in the student who had been in my class for two years prior who i'd never really talked to who i didn't really make a relationship with i was finally able to sit down one on one and find out her story so she had gone to powwows when she was younger and then her regalia was too small so in the last couple of years she hadn't been able to go to powwows and she had asked some family members to make her one and no one had come forward to make her one so just like the story that it just touched me that she had no one to make her regalia and it was finally um her turn to do it for herself so just like the pride that she showed just as it's coming together now it's really cool um on the food side of things um susan came to me again at the beginning of the year how about we do a class called lifestyle food um so the students in my class after teaching for 13 years this was probably one of the biggest challenging classes i've ever had um a student with down syndrome one grade seven student who was reading at a grade four level one grade 12 students who could have been in a grade 12 class but he was excited because he got to cook every day didn't have tests didn't have marking so he just wanted to be there um two grade 12 students who are graduating but they're not going to go on to university or um college and they just they need to learn to cook for themselves and so it was a very challenging class how we got to bring everybody together and um with our four first nation students and how they kind of from grade seven to twelve were able to work together as a group and how we had some um elders come in and teach us about some traditional cooking and it just turned out to be like one of my favorite classes hi tangy bonjour good morning uh i've been told i have two minutes so i'll try and keep this quick so the approach or philosophy we take in the shop at saint timothy uh i teach carpentry and welding grade seven to twelve is using the shop as a place for student engagement and that starts with making it a safe and accepting place once students feel safe and accepted there i see a big pickup in their work ethic it's a place that they want to be they actually want to come to school whereas before our school was i mean welding your assignment is to melt things together there's nothing that's not fun about that for a teenage boy uh so we do a lot of hands-on learning and with the high school redesign giving them the liberty to choose their own project it's something meaningful for them really engages them a lot more also myself having grown up hunting and trapping in northern alberta we got an exciting opportunity coming up in june 21st aboriginal day we're going to teach the kids how to make flashing poles and first stretchers teach them about trapping just reconnecting with nature and the land and having a respect for that traditional way of life really looking forward to that so that's uh yeah one new initiative we're trying this year but it's a really great way to connect with the kids and just teaching them trades and some employability skills so hi hi