College for some of the graduates, has in the past, been a difficult experience. “About eight years ago, 77% of our students that had gone out to postsecondary programs returned to the community by October,” says Angela. “So, we have added into the timetable a learning strategies course to get our students equipped to make that transition. They research places to go, look at the pros and cons, the connections, financing, and work with First Nations to see what sponsorships look like. Now, we’re not having that crazy high percentage of not being successful when they leave.” The Board also promotes college inspection tours. Recently some students visited schools in Northern Ontario: Northern College in Timmins, Laurentian and Cambrian in Sudbury, and Canadore and Nipissing University in North Bay. “Our students tend to do better in post-secondary programs if they’re closer to home,” says Carman. “It’s not always feasible for parents to take students to visit a campus,” Angela adds. “We have three staff who have taken them out. These are grade-11 students who are thinking about applying. And we’ve also included our grade-12 students that have confirmed offers. And next week, all of our grade-10 students will be heading out on the train to spend two nights in residence at Northern College and participating in ‘go-to-college’ activities.” AN OLD INFRASTRUCTURE GETS UPGRADES The Board must also contend with a particularly aging infrastructure, as both the elementary school and the high school are relics from the middle of the last century.“We’ve taken on, over the last couple of years, the greening of the school grounds,” Angela reports. “We’ve had difficulties with drainage; redoing parking lots; wheelchair accessibility; and putting up new fencing at our elementary, which included a kindergarten area. We had issues with vandalism, so we put in some very, very bright lights in the back of the school grounds. We re-did the track to provide better spaces for our students to participate in physical learning.We are having a new playground structure installed this July.” “Our elementary school was built in the 1960s,” Angela continues. “And because there are cast iron pipes underneath, the whole sewer system went down, and we had to redo the whole system. With COVID, there were air quality concerns. Our Board was approved for some money to do an HVAC project, which is very costly up here. So, we’ve got a part of that done and part of that project too, was to put in a new lower roof because it was leaking very, very badly. On top of that, the housing units need a lot of things–windows, and siding. It gets to minus-40 up here, so not only do we need to provide housing, we need to provide energy-efficient housing.” CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Going forward, Carman says that an upcoming challenge, or maybe an opportunity, will be how 381 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 07 JAMES BAY LOWLANDS SECONDARY SCHOOL BOARD & MOOSONEE DISTRICT AR
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