Dear Hurricane Families,
Did everyone see that light snow falling down on Friday during yesterday’s PD Day? That means winter is quickly approaching and looking at this week’s attached Hurricane ‘WEEKLY’ Newsletter for November 27th-December 1st, so too is December! YIKES!
Thank you to parents who completed our recent Well-being, Health and Youth Survey (W.H.Y.) facilitated by the partnership between our school board and public health. Our student response rate was almost at 100%, that’s amazing! We will use the feedback as a board and as a school, to critically look at what programs, changes and shifts in our practices we can collectively make, in order to keep building safer and welcoming environments for our teachers to work and more importantly, for our young people to feel like the belong and so they can learn! We always appreciate your partnership!
Our H.T. school community has a wonderful tradition of supporting local, national and international charities over the years. And so right now, we are targeting our local community as we approach the Christmas Holidays. We invite all Hurricane families to join our Christmas Hamper Campaign, in partnership with Saint Vincent DePaul – a Catholic organization dedicated to supporting families in need in various communities. Please see the letter that was sent home yesterday with the oldest student in each family. Thank you in advance for everything you do to support those less-fortunate in our community, Hurricanes!
And finally, we hope our students had a great day off yesterday and were able to spend some time with friends, enjoy some fresh air outside or even just catch up on some rest! Our staff were not so fortunate, but fortunate enough to be able to gather together at the school for some important and meaningful Spiritual Development activities. The theme of our day revolved around the miracle of Jesus, raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Through this scripture, we discussed ways we can all “unbind” barriers, roadblocks, hardships or whatever hold us back from experiencing the true joy, blessings and potential of life that God gives us – and how to unbind and awaken our students, our friends, family and each other. “May we hear this call, wherever we are along the journey. May we take hold of the courage Jesus so lovingly wants to share, and collectively transform our story – one unbinding at a time.” This was our focus. We also had the privilege, to have Michael Jacques and his father Marcel, speak to our entire school board system. Michael spoke to our very own H.T. students earlier this week. Michael’s shared his beautiful story of navigating school and life with autism and intellectual disabilities, and what helped unbind those barriers in his way. His story reveals how these unbindings not only helped him achieve the success he’s experienced to this day, but more importantly, the sense that he has an identity, that he has worth and that he belongs in this world! These were the lessons we hoped all students, staff and parents heard this week from them – his biggest message being that we can only do that together with love, patience, humour, creativity and kindness. Perhaps this Pope Francis quote encapsulates Michael’s vision and the work we need to do as a school community;
“In this church there is room for everyone! Room for everyone!
No one is useless, no one is superfluous, there is room for everyone.
As we are, all of us…there is space for everyone,
and when there isn’t, PLEASE, let’s work so that there is…”
Have a great weekend everyone, take care of yourselves and each other Hurricanes!