St. Denis Catholic School News
October 2018
Toronto Catholic District School Board Trustee 2018-2019
1. Joseph Martino 8. Gary Tanuan 2. Ann Andrachuk 9. Jo-Ann Davis 3. Sal Piccininni 10. Barbara Poplawski 4. Patrizia Bottoni 11. Angela Kennedy, Chair 5. Maria Rizzo 12. Nancy Crawford 6. Frank D’Amico, Vice-Chair Rhea Carlisle, Student Trustee 7. Michael Del Grande Joel Ndongmi, Student Trustee
Dear Parents,
I would like to start off the October Newsletter with a welcome to our St. Denis Catholic School Parent Council (CSPC) executive: Annie Borkowski, Irene Arm-strong, Maureen McKee & Carol Chiu. Thank you for choosing to be a part of this year’s parent council and I encourage all parents to come out to meetings and get involved as much as possible.
The Virtue of the Month for October is Gratitude. The virtue of Gratitude shapes our entire outlook on life as it is the channel through which we become aware of the sacred, and the many blessings of our lives. Saying ‘thank you’ demonstrates an appreciation for others and allows us to accept that we can always use a helping hand. Teachers will be aware of any acts of Gratitude within the classroom and school community and acknowledge these students at our November assembly.
As I’ve talked to parents this past month, it is clear that your children are similar to mine in regards to their response when asked ‘How was your day at school today?’ Since the typical response is ‘nothing,’ below are some other questions that might spark some more meaningful discussion:
Can you show me something you’ve learned today? What was the best part of your day? What is your teacher’s most important rule? Do you agree with this? What was the interesting fact of the day that Mr. D’Addario said over the
PA? What was the funniest thing that happened today at school? How did you help someone today? Who did you say ‘thank you’ today and why?
Lastly, below are some of the programs to look forward to in October and Novem-ber:
Lunch Lady: Our student lunch program will start in November and will run on Mondays and Thursdays. Please see the poster for more details.
Arts Express: An engaging art program will be starting in 2 weeks. There will be two after-school programs running for grades 1 to 8 on Tues-days (Sketching and Drawing) and Thursdays (Drama). Please see the poster for more details
Sincerely,
Robert D’Addario Principal
Twitter: @robertdaddario
St. Denis Catholic School
67 Balsam Avenue Toronto, Ontario
M4E 3B8
————————————
Principal: Mr. R. D’Addario
Secretary: Mrs. J. Mallia
Superintendent: Mr. J. Shanahan 416-222-8282
Director of Education Rory McGuckin
Website: www.tcdsb.org
Community Parish: Corpus Christi Catholic
Church 1810 Queen Street E.,
416-694-0382
Enrolment: 288
Hours of Operation: 8:15 a.m.—3:15 p.m.
Lunch Hour: 11:15a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
regularly at www.tcdsb.org
WE DAY 2017
On Thursday, September 20th, seventeen students from St. Denis were lucky enough to be able to go to WE Day 2018! Hun-dreds of other students from schools all over Toronto joined us in a concert dedicated to inspir-ing kids like us to change the world and giving us the tools to start. We learned about many different causes, and what other students had done to raise money and awareness for their school or individual cause. We met amazing people who shared their extraor-dinary stories with us about how they started a movement or changed people’s lives. We also enjoyed exclusive performances from current artists and bands. It was truly a life-changing expe-rience, and for me personally it opened my eyes to just how big WE is. I think I speak for all of us that went when I say we all came home incredibly inspired and ready to change the world! By: Georgia
SKILLS CANADA
On Thursday, September 13th, the intermediate students had a presentation from Skills Cana-da. Skills Canada is a not for profit organization established in 1989, meant to teach and help students to pick a career in the skilled trades and technologies industry that they will be happy with every time they do that job. It was a very interesting presen-tation and we learned a lot in that small period of time - like how much you would make, the de-scription of the jobs, what quali-ties, education and training you would need, and also they spoke about apprenticeships. At the end, we got to ask lots of ques-tions and think about what to look for in a career that fits our per-sonality and what we like and what we might be naturally good at. By: Jackson
CSPC for 2018-2019
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our newly formed CSAC Execu-tive.
Co-Chairs: Anne Borkowski & Irene Armstrong Treasurer: Maureen McKee Secretary: Carol Chiu
Staff – Ms. Cassidy,
Thank you all for your attend-ance at our first CSPCC meeting of the school year.
Our next CSPC meeting will be held on October 24th at 7pm in the library.
SECONDARY SCHOOL OPEN
HOUSES
All Toronto Catholic District School Board secondary schools welcome grade 8 students and their families to open houses each fall. This is an opportunity to meet some of the staff, check out school facilities and learn more about the various programs, services and activi-ties as you prepare for Catholic secondary school education.
For a complete schedule, see: https://www.tcdsb.org/school/openhous-es/pages/default.aspx
GET ALL THE LATEST NEWS
Follow @TCDSB on Twitter to get the news as it happens.
Subscribe to E-news to receive information via email one or more times per week. https://web1.tcdsb.org/InterestSubscription/subscription.aspx
Or visit the board’s website
DROPPING OFF AND PICKING UP STUDENTS
For the sake of safety, we ask that in the morn-ings you drop off your children in the appropriate sections of the school yard and leave them with our staff. Please make sure that your child is dropped off no earlier than 8:15 a.m. Supervision in our school yard begins at 8:15a.m. This will help the students develop routines and it will also help our staff ensure a safe school yard.
If you are picking up your child(ren) early from school, please come to the office and sign out the student. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
CROSS COUNTRY
Our students have been working hard running up and down Spruce Hill during the lunch hour getting ready for Cross Country .
Below are the dates for Cross Country: Divisional— October 11/17 Regionals— October 24/17 Both these meets will take place on the Boardwalk. City Championships will take place on Tuesday, October 24/17 at Earls Bales Park.
ST. DENIS PICNIC
The St. Denis Picnic was held on October 14 and everyone had a fantastic time. We would like to give a BIG THANK YOU to Krista Stevens, who took on organizing the picnic this year at the last mo-ment. Thank you to the many vol-unteers who also stepped up. The picnic would not have been such a great success if we didn't have volunteers!!
TCDSB School Donations
Donations to schools are used to enhance local fundraising efforts, which support school initiatives that are not funded through Pro-vincial Ministry of Education grants. School Cash Online makes donating to schools easier than ever, and all donations of receive a tax receipt. Click here to learn more or donate today: https://www.tcdsb.org/Board/Pages/TCDSB-School-Donations.aspx
International Languages (Elementary) Program Update:
October, 2018
International Languages Parent Survey
On July 12th, the Board of Trus-tees of the TCDSB approved a motion to survey parents in all TCDSB elementary schools to determine whether parents wish to continue or initiate an Interna-tional Languages (Elementary) pro-gram at their child’s school.
Surveys will be sent home with the progress report the week of November 12th, with the only or oldest child in each family. Families are asked to complete one survey per family and submit it to the school principal by November 27, 2018.
To ensure that results reflect the school community, surveys will be coded to ensure reliability, as well as, surveys from 67% of all fami-lies in the school must be complet-ed and returned in order for the results to be considered viable. In the current schools that offer International Languages within the five hour school day, in order
to determine if the program is to be continued using the Board approved model, or to move the IL program to an alternative model, the majority of 51% should be attained for the pre-ferred selection.
For updated information re-garding the International Lan-guages Program please visit: https://www.tcdsb.org/programsservices/schoolprogramsk12/internationallanguages/pages/change-to-international-languages-program.aspx
Municipal Election October 22, 2018
New ward boundaries will be in effect
Existing Trustee Wards, in-cluding the local Catholic schools they represent, re-main unchanged and the new boundaries DO NOT come into effect until December 1, 2018.
These changes do not affect the current number of Toronto Catholic District School Board Trustees which will remain at 12. However, it impacts the dis-tribution areas of Trustee Wards and the local schools they represent.
https://www.tcdsb.org/board/trusteesoftheboard/pages/new-trustee-ward-boundaries.aspx
PLEASE NOTE: Although these changes do not come into effect until December 1, 2018, registered Catholic ratepayers will be voting for candidates based on these 12 new Trustee Wards for the Municipal Elec-tion on October 22, 2018. For more information regarding elections: https://myvote.toronto.ca/home
October 2018
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2
Jr. Boys Soccer
3
Jr Girls Soccer
School Mass @ Corpus
Parent Info Night - Gr. 7 & 8—Montreal & Lake St. George
4
High School Visits—Notre Dame & Neil McNeil
5
P.D. DAY—NO SCHOOL
6
7 8
9 10 11
ELP1 & ELP2– Field Trip to Apple Orchard Trip
12
Divisional—Cross Country
PIZZA LUNCH
13
14
Annual St. Denis Picnic 11-2pm @ Kew
15 16
Regionals—Cross Country
Neil McNeil—Open House @ 6:30 pm
17
Notre Dame Open House @ 7pm
18 19
PIZZA LUNCH
20
21 22 23 24
City—Cross Country
25 26
PIZZA LUNCH
27
28 29
Picture Retake Day –pm
30
31
We “Scare” Hunger Dance
Upcoming Events:
November 2nd—Pizza Lunch
November 14 & 15 —Parent/Teacher Conferences
November 17—P.D. DAY
November 23 & 30 PIZZA LUNCH