SOUTH EAST CORNERSTONE SCHOOL DIVISION NO. 209

And from this corner

Education Week was a way to celebrate student achieve-ment, along with valuing the diversity in our schools. Three schools were asked to share some of the activities they held to celebrate the week.

At Gladmar Regional School, Education Week-related activi-ties began earlier in the month, when a presentation was made to the school by a group of musicians from Africa, called Masabo, on Oct. 7. This group of hereditary West African mas-ter musicians and dancers filled the air with soaring melodies and driving rhythms as the ancient arts of West Africa were brought to life.

The presentation featured mu-sic, dancing and storytelling from the country of Côte d’Ivoire. As part of their act, Masabo brought thousands of years of African history to the stage for all students to see, with many participating in the stories and dancing. A day earlier, on Oct. 6, stu-dents in Grades 3 and 4 hiked through the rugged terrain of

Volume 2, Issue 3

November 2010

With Remembrance Day this month, it is important to re-mind students (and staff) what is so significant about this event and why we should thank those veterans still with us for their sacrifices.

A number of websites offer many resources teachers can insert into their lesson plans on how to educate students about this important time and why we wear poppies.

For Kindergarten to Grade 8 teachers, the websites canadaonline.about.com/od/remembrancedayk8Remem-brance_Day_Lesson_Plans_K8.htm and www.youthonline.ca/online/rememberanceday.shtml both offer plenty of helpful re-sources and tips to teach stu-dents about the past sacrifices made by our veterans.

And if you live close to a Royal

Canadian Legion branch, there is the annual Literary and Poster Contest, which aims to foster the tradition of Remembrance amongst young Canadians.

For more information, visit www.legion.ca/Poppy/contests_e.cfm.

On November 11, take time to remember and be thankful for your freedom. Lest We Forget.

Many activities held to celebrate diversity during education week

Take t ime to remember in the month of November

40 Developmental Assets meetings: Nov. 1—Weyburn Nov. 2—Moosomin Nov. 3—Estevan All start times 7 p.m.

Take Our Kids To Work Day—Nov. 3

Holocaust Education Week—Nov. 1-9

Remembrance Day—Nov. 11

Bullying Awareness Week—Nov. 14-20

Conversations with the Board responses Nov. 22—Alameda Nov. 23—Wapella Nov. 24—Yellow Grass

the Big Muddy badlands to visit a variety of historic sites—a buffalo jump, turtle effigy and outlaw caves to name but a few of the activities from that location. At Weldon School in Bienfait, students in Grades 6-8 heard from Lampman author Mau-reen Ulrich on Oct. 19 about her inspiration for the books she has written and had pub-lished, which focus around hockey and teenagers.

Students from Kindergarten to Grade 5 had “new” teachers for a class, as teachers swapped rooms for a short time. Teachers read a multicul-tural-themed book and brought an activity or project to work on for that time.

On Oct. 21, K-6 students had the opportunity to learn how to make rope bracelets. The Souris Valley Museum paid a visit to the school, with a rope-making machine coming along. The students made rope bracelets and played old-time jump rope games

brought from the Museum.

Later that day, players from the Estevan Bruins hockey team read to students in K-6 before joining the Grades 5-8 students in some games of floor hockey.

Rocanville School held an Education Week open house on Oct. 14, with parents and students invited to participate in a number of activities. Over 200 bowls of chili were served by the School Community Council, while the SRC put on numerous games of chance, such as mini putt and bean bag toss. All proceeds went to the school’s two adopted chil-dren through the Christian Children’s Fund.

Students Against Drinking and Driving held a scavenger hunt throughout the school, with parents and students having to find facts about the perils of driving and using alcohol or drugs, driving tired and driving while texting or talking on a cell phone.

Students at the Weyburn Comprehen-sive School had the opportunity on Sept. 23 to hear about the personal struggles and loss of former Canadian boxing champion George Chuvalo.

Chuvalo was the Canadian heavy-weight champion for 21 years, from 1958-79, but is most known for his two fights against “The Champ” Muham-mad Ali. Despite going the distance in both fights with Ali, Chuvalo lost both contests. The former champ also fought George Foreman, Floyd Patter-son, Joe Frazier and many others dur-ing his illustrious career.

During his talk with the Weyburn stu-dents, the former Canadian boxer spoke about his struggles with drugs and alcohol abuse and how it affected his family. Of his five children—four boys and one girl—three of his sons battled drug addictions with two dying

The former Canadian heavyweight presented a number of important ideas for the students to take away. The first is that doing drugs is “insane” and the worst thing youth can do. A second idea is youth need to accept love into their lives to avoid a life of hurt, regret and drug abuse.

“I don’t care how big or tough you are, you still need love. If it weren’t for love, I wouldn’t be here today. Love makes you feel strong, tender, secure, appreciated, important.”

Another idea is drug use hurts others besides the user. Chuvalo’s wife com-mitted suicide a couple days after the death of their second son.

At the end of his presentation, Chu-valo joked about what it was like to take on Muhammad Ali, saying “it was-n’t a whole lot of fun.”

Under perfect fall conditions, stu-dents and staff from Midale Central School, along with members from the community, celebrated the offi-cial opening of the school’s new playground structure on Sept. 30.

The project took one-and-a-half years from start to finish, with dona-tions coming in from various busi-nesses, including two large dona-tions from Cenovus Energy and Mainprize Manor Trust Fund. The

colourful structure was installed over June 3-4 of last year, with the school receiving help in the form of time and manpower from the project donors.

“Woohoo!” laughed Colleen Scharnatta, president of the School Community Council, about finishing the project. “It’s been a great thing to finally have it ac-complished. Now we’ll just be adding to the smaller parts of the park,” such as swings and fitness bars, along with benches to make the park more com-munity oriented. A plaque will be put up in the school recognizing sponsors.

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from heroin overdoses and one commit-ting suicide.

Chuvalo ex-plained be-cause of his experience with drug abuse, he feels it is his job to inform young people today about the pitfalls of substance abuse and the jeopardy they put themselves in by doing drugs.

“My sons are not here anymore. But if I couldn’t go around and talk to young people about my sons and show (today’s youth) the horrible examples of my sons’ lives, it would be like my sons died in vain,” Chuvalo added.

A N D F R O M T H I S C O R N E R

Former boxing champ talks to students about struggles

- Kate Andrews—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Christian Sereggela—Estevan Comprehensive

- Brett Schmidt—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Tanner Hunt—McNaughton High

- Devin Firth—Carnduff Education Complex

- Matthew Cundall—Estevan Comprehensive

- Gene Irwin—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Nikki St. Onge—McNaughton High

- Rebecca Cooper—Estevan Comprehensive

- Jodie Woodward—Redvers

South East Cornerstone is proud to celebrate its students’ achievements whenever they occur, and the division would like to acknowledge the 26 graduates of the 2010 General Proficiency Award:

- Mitchell McCallum—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Wyatt Shaw—McNaughton High

- Katlin Lenz—Yellow Grass

- Erin Clarke—”33” Central Fillmore

- Colton Neithercut—Yellow Grass

- Marcus Lau—Estevan Comprehensive

- Raquel Dimmick—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Erica Frazer—Maryfield

- Clinton Chess—Estevan Comprehensive

- Rogan Milatz—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Robert Nelson—Yellow Grass

- Alana Nelson—Yellow Grass

- Katie Lee—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Jessica Sukut—Redvers

- Paige VandeSype—Weyburn Comprehensive

- Amanda Ogden—”33” Central Fillmore

SECSD students receive general proficiency awards

Midale School off ic ially opens new playground structure

Photo and story courtesy the Weyburn Review

for adequate funding for programs and services for students.

The South East Cornerstone Teachers’ Association has invited the Board to share in the morning of their annual convention in Weyburn on Thursday, Nov. 5. The Board is also anticipating productive meetings with School Com-munity Councils on Monday, Nov. 1 in Weyburn, Nov. 2 in Moosomin and Nov. 3 in Estevan. These meetings will be based on the 40 Developmental Assets surveys and will begin the plan-ning for enhanced opportunities for students to learn and be successful.

Now that this school year is already two months old, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you

November is the time of year when we all should take time to reflect and give thanks for the lifestyle and freedom we experience in Canada.

On November 11, please pause for a moment to give thanks to those men and women who have contributed to that freedom.

The Board of Education has a very busy November. The annual Sas-katchewan School Boards Association Convention and Annual General Meet-ing is on Sunday, Nov. 28 and Mon-day, Nov. 29. Many worthwhile efforts result, from the discussions and resolu-tions, such as enhanced safety on school buses to aligning advocacy efforts to the provincial government

who make a positive different in the lives of students. Thank you to: those who safely drive our students to school; those who work in transportation and maintenance; those who keep our schools clean; those who answer phones and keep every-one organized; those who work be-hind the scenes in many capacities; those who coach, lead and mentor students in extracurricular activities; and those who teach and help our students learn and grow. Thank you to all of you from the Board of Education.

Carol Flynn, Board Chair

of the students and participated in helping to duct tape Lee and student presi-dent Mac War-ren to the wall, as the students had raised over $4,000, ex-ceeding the original goal of $2,500.

As part of its Hometown Tour across Saskatchewan, CTV Regina came to Ogema School on Sept. 29, with an-chors Manfred Joehnick and Angel Blair visiting with students and staff.

Ogema principal Ronda Lee ex-plained the student body welcomed the CTV anchors with cheers and chants, all the while surrounded by CTV banners posted around the gym. Angel and Manfred talked with some

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November greetings from the board chair

Ogema school part of ctv’s hometown tour

Spruce Ridge (Estevan): $1,500

Alameda: $4,006

McNaughton (Moosomin): $4,000

Hillcrest (Estevan): $244.12

Wawota Parkland: $544.37

“33” Central (Fillmore): $683

Gladmar: $3,468.04

Manor: $4,887.09

Redvers: $5,279.85

Wapella: $800

Midale: $2,730.23

Yellow Grass: $2,140

Carlyle: $10,357.39, beating the goal of $8K

Pangman: $961.33

Weldon (Bienfait): $100

Arcola: $3,449.25

Haig (Weyburn): $247.50

Lampman: $3,024.50, exceeding the target goal of $2,500

Maryfield: $1,077.80

Carnduff: $15,368.05

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope run, with thou-sands of students across Canada raising funds for cancer by participating in the Na-tional School Run Day on Sept. 30. The fol-lowing list shows how much SECSD schools raised for the Terry Fox Foundation:

Rocanville: $5,584.57

Macoun: $4,765.85, nearly double the amount raised last year

MacLeod Elementary (Moosomin): $2,901

Ogema: over $4,000,

Weyburn Junior High: $4,200

Carievale: $2,200

Pleasantdale (Estevan): $7,401.37

Westview (Estevan): $350

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SECSD schools raise funds for Terry fox foundation

word “laugh,” the artist turned the “U” into a smile and the “G” into a skipping rope.

Each “word” mural was paired with a sepa-rate, realistic painting showing a young

child jumping or laughing, or being held in the arms of a caregiver.

Prior to starting the project, Jozsa ap-proached Oxbow Town Council and asked if the murals could be put on a building. Council agreed that the artwork of stu-dents should be on permanent display in

By Marilyn Johnson

Members of the Oxbow Prairie Horizons Art Club have stepped up to the “palate” and are sharing their artistic talents with their community.

In June, six students from Oxbow Prairie Horizons School and their art teacher, Mike Jozsa, added the final brush strokes to four 2x4 murals. Recently these murals were mounted on an exte-rior wall of one of the town’s heritage buildings.

This fall, four more murals will be added to the series with the assistance of the six students. Club members decided the theme of the paintings would be enti-tled “Live, Love, Laugh and Learn.”

It was up to Jozsa to determine how this theme would be explored artistically. He asked the students to transform the shapes of the letters in the words into pictures. For example, in the painting depicting the

the community and set aside some funds to help pay for the cost of some of the materials. In order to raise additional funds for the art program, Jozsa said small repro-

ductions of the paintings will be avail-able for sale.

Jozsa explained the ultimate goal is to “plaster the town with art.” He noted the murals can attract tourists to a com-munity and he hopes that someday that may be true for Oxbow.

The project has already had a ripple effect. Jozsa said one student was so encouraged when she saw her mural displayed on the side of the building she is now working on another, more

complicated painting.

The Oxbow Rink has expressed interest in having some murals in its facility as well. As a result, a member of the art club is pres-ently working on four paintings that depict sports played at the rink.

Oxbow art club shares paintings with community

80A-18th Street Northeast Weyburn, Sask.

S4H 2W4

Phone: (306) 848-4795 Fax: (306) 848-7406

E-mail: jason.antonio@cornerstonesd.ca

SOUTH EAST CORNERSTONE SCHOOL DIVISION NO. 209

We’re on the web! cornerstonesd.ca

South East Cornerstone School Division No. 209 serves nearly

8,000 students in 39 schools across southeast Saskatchewan.

Stretching from Ogema in the west, to Maryfield in the east,

to Estevan in the south, to Rocanville in the north, SECSD

covers nearly 31,000 square kilometres. With a mission of pro-

viding passionate and committed leadership and a vision to

ensure success for all students, South East Cornerstone School

Division is a leader in instructing students and showcasing

and utilizing technology to enhance education in all schools.