Kobza's Komments

As we approach the season of advent, I’d like to highlight a couple of programs to illustrate this years theme, Horizon of Hope. It’s important that we all are beacons of hope and we are letting our students shine through focusing on conduct and celebrating their cultures and stories.

OLWEUS  Program

On Thursday November 12, the entire staff was trained on the program components: individual, classroom, school, and community. The goals of the program are to reduce bullying problems among students, to prevent the development of new problems, to achieve better peer relations at school, and to provide students with skills needed to be leaders. A key component from the training forward is that our community have a shared understanding of what bullying is.  Three components of bullying behaviour are that is involves an aggressive behaviour, typically involves a pattern of behaviour repeated over time, and involves an imbalance of power or strength.

Currently we are working on putting together the school-level components.  We have established a Coordinating Committee with the following representatives:

Mrs. Kobza – Coordinator

Mr. Pollio and Mrs. Kremenik – Co-chairs

Kevin Verberk – Secretary and Divisional Rep

Mrs. Ponomar, Ms. Pilsner, Mr. Parr, Mrs. Hay, Mrs. Jans – Staff Reps

Mrs. Rocca and Mrs. Shore – Counsellors

Leroy CrazyBoy – FNMI Program Leader

Karen Kondor – Trainer

On Friday the 13^th the committee met for the first time and decided to administer the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire before Christmas. The survey asks the students forty questions about their life at the school. The committee and staff will analyze the results of the survey and make changes to our supervisory system as needed. We will be moving forward with implementation oat our January PD Day.

Artist in Residence Showcase

We are excited to have John ChiefCalf, Blackfoot teacher at CCH, offer an Art Visualization and Writing Program to our junior high First Nations students.  John has had 6 sessions with our students where they worked on the following elements:

1. Identifying how students create relationships with nature and how this impacts their identity and sense of belonging
2. Writing about a shared experience and sharing emotion
3. Responding with art, beading, or dancing

We will be showcasing our students’ work in a couple of ways this month.  First, our students will have a session at our Christmas Family Fun Night on Wednesday, December 9^th from 5:30 – 7:30.  Come out and enjoy some frybread and berry soup!