A new report presented at the most recent Catholic School Division Board of Education meeting shows extracurricular engagement is at record levels this fall.
Trustees received a copy of the report on Nov. 28. It will then be passed to the division’s School Community Councils (SCCs) this month.
Education director Lorel Trumier said athletic engagement at both elementary and high school levels was a big reason for the boost.
“We had five cross-country runs with 130 athletes. We had 24 volleyball teams between Grade 6, 7 and 8. Those are numbers that we haven’t seen,” Trumier said. “We are just so excited to have our children want to get engaged.”
Trumier credited school staff for the increase. She said they’ve done a good job of encouraging students to get involved in extracurricular events at all levels.
“That’s a lot of work that gets done outside of the school day,” she said. “They don’t get remuneration for it. They do get to accrue a few hours for time in lieu but it is not hour for hour and it’s to a maximum of three days in the entire school year. Well I can tell you some of these coaches are putting in significant hours and working as much as three to four weeks of overtime so they have been very generous and this is a celebration of that for sure.”
The report also highlighted Ecole St. Mary Soccer and volleyball winning medals at the provincial level.
“It just is amazing the sheer number of students who want to get involved,” Trumier said. “I am celebrating our staff because they are doing such a great job of the work to have students engaged.”
The SCC report also highlighted activities for the upcoming Advent season. Trumier said they’re encouraged to see significant student involvement in that area as well.
“We are in the Advent season in our Catholic faith of course and that means our preparation for the birth of Christ and our Saviour, so (there are) lots of Christmas fun nights and concerts and different activities across the time at the school level as well as our prayerful parts of that which would be our Advent celebrations and liturgies,” she explained.
“We have an elementary Christmas concert for the band that’s going to be our whole school division, students are involved in it, on December 14. We have our high school winter concert for our band and choir and that’s going to be at St. Mary December 15, looking forward to that.”
The Elementary Band concert is taking place at Ecole St. Anne.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
