The staff and students of the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division were commended for the involvement and fundraising done for the Terry Fox School Run, as representatives of the Terry Fox Foundation attended the monthly board meeting on March 13.
Heather McKenzie, the executive director for the foundation’s office for Saskatchewan and Manitoba, commended the school division for their many years of taking part and promoting the school run, which raises money for cancer research in Canada.
“We just wanted to thank Holy Family for your support of the foundation. We just wanted to come in gratitude,” she said. “We raise about $1 million a year in Saskatchewan, and you guys are a part of that.”
A big part of having the run each year is making sure each generation that comes up is aware of who Terry Fox was and how important cancer research is.
“We want to instill things like perseverance. It’s all about cancer research and instilling understanding why it’s important, and the value of putting yourself forward and making a sacrifice,” she said.
There will be a new promotion for the national school run, called Be Like Terry, and McKenzie noted this would be a good promotion that high school student councils can take and promote within the schools.
She pointed out schools like St. Michael in Weyburn has been involved with the Terry Fox Run since 2000, raising $14,905 in that time, and St. Mary’s in Estevan has held 14 runs since 2005. Trustee Bev Hickie pointed out that a staff member there did the run for over 20 years, so the numbers were far greater than that.
McKenzie noted that for a number of years, when the school runs started, people were sending the monies raised directly to Betty Fox rather than through the Terry Fox Foundation, so the records may not reflect how long organizations have been involved with the run.
In this last year, 585 schools in Saskatchewan took part in the National School Run, and from September to January, the Terry Fox Foundation office in Regina takes in all the cheques and cash raised by those schools, as well as from the community runs.
“We’re now coming across teachers who never saw Terry run. They’re looking for things to tie to Terry and to cancer research. With social media and everything, I don’t think kids see that kind of perseverance any more,” said McKenzie. “We will continue that fight for him, in his name.”
In other school board business, education director Gwen Keith gave an update on the new student information system that will come into effect for all school divisions in the province.
She noted there had been a proposal for including a new report card as part of the province-wide system, but school divisions made it clear they wanted to continue using their own report cards.
“We’ve been told we can use our own report cards, but at the same time, they want school boards to sit down and talk,” said Keith, adding that Holy Family is “still on target” to getting the system in place by Aug. 1.
She pointed out that some school divisions have indicated they are dropping out and will not use the new provincial student data system.
“There will be financial repercussions. Part of it is anticipating how much information is needed and who will need it,” she said. “Our people are confident and pro-active, but it’s major work.”
There was supposed to be nine school boards who were to have the system in place for the current school year, but this didn’t happen as it couldn’t be put in place in time.
Also, Holy Family staff members Lynn Colquhoun and Clare Fingler will be making a presentation in Saskatoon on Saskatchewan Reads, on the curriculum for reading and writing. They will be sharing a digital dashboard that staff use to track how well students in schools across the school division are doing in these areas, and will share what the “best practices” are in Holy Family in teaching these subjects.
