From the Principal’s Desk, As the school year winds down, and we look forward to the slower pace of the summer months, we have the op-portunity to reflect on some of our challenges and accom-

plishments this past year. We continue to deal with fluctuations in enrol-ment and being on two campuses. The parents continue to work diligently with the Board as we look to build the new school. At this time, we are still awaiting Ministry approval for the underground parking. We have also been blessed with many rewarding and successful school activities and initi-atives. It continues to be a pleasure working with all stakeholders in this dynamic community, and I would like to express my sincere thanks to each of you for your ongoing support. I would like to personally thank Father Andy and Father Noel for their spiritual guidance and involvement with our students. We are blessed to have such a rewarding relationship with the par-ish. A reminder that the sacrament of Confirmation will be bestowed year-ly on our grade 7 students. Thanks to Mr. Kassar who has donated two Toronto FC Jerseys to be raffled off to support ShareLife. One jersey will be raffled off at each site on our Celebrate Euro Cup Day Friday, June 17th, 2016. Tickets will be sold for $2.00 each or 5 for $5.00. Thanks for your support. With each passing year there are changes that take place. I would like to acknowledge and thank teachers who will be moving on in their careers. Firstly, Mr. Lee and Ms. Lecce will be retiring at the end of this academic year after many years of service in the SMS Community. Ms. Dimonte and Mr. Kassar’s long term assignments will conclude at the end of this year. The staff gave freely of their time and shared their talents to the benefit of our students, and they will be missed. We would like to wish them much success in their future endeavours as they enter new chapters in their lives. The next few weeks promise to be very busy as we work to have everything in place for the upcoming year. As the school year draws to a close we ask God to bless our staff, stu-dents and their families and take good care of them over the summer months. We are especially grateful to all our volunteers, the members of CSPC, all the parents who have supported their children’s academic growth, the hardworking and caring staff and the students who do their best to make education fun and who love to learn.

In honour of all Dad’s - Happy Father’s Day

JUNE 2016

St. Margaret Catholic School News

Principal: H. Pires Vice Principal: S. Ranalli

Secretary : V. Picillo Secretary : M. Barbara

CSPC Chair: T. Sinclair

Superintendant: J. Shain 416-222-8282 Ext. 2267

Trustee: M. Rizzo

416-512-3405

Parish: St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church 416-485-7781

Pastor: Fr. Andy

TORONTO CATHOLIC DISTRICT SCHOOLBOARD

TRUSTEES 2015-2016 Wards 1. Joseph Martino 416-512-3401

2. Ann Andrachuk 416-512-3402 3. Sal Piccininni, 416-512-3403

4. Patrizia Bottoni 416-512-3404 5. Maria Rizzo 416-512-3405 6. Frank D’Amico, 416-512-3406 Vice Chair 7. Michael Del Grande 416-512-3407 8. Gary Tanuan 416-512-3408

9. Jo-Ann Davis 416-512-3409 10. Barbara Poplawski 416-512-3410

11. Angela Kennedy, 416-512-3411 Chair 12. Nancy Crawford, 416-512-3412 13. Karina Dubrovskaya, 416-512-3417 Student Trustee 14. Allison Gacad, 416-512-3413 Student Trustee

St. Margaret Catholic School

85 Carmichael Avenue Toronto, On M5M 2X1

416-393-5249 x 0 50 Ameer Avenue

Toronto, On M6A 2L3 416-393-5249 x 3

Dress Policy Parents are reminded that St. Margaret School has a manda-tory dress policy that all students are expected to follow. Parents may choose to shop at R.J. McCarthy’ for crested items or purchase the navy bottoms and un-crested logo-free white tops at Old Navy or Wal-Mart etc. As the warmer days are upon us, we request parents to remind and ensure their chil-dren are wearing the navy bottoms and white tops that make up our school uniform. Your support and cooperation are appreciated. Athletics Update The students and coaches worked diligently in preparing for this year’s Track and Field Tournaments. The student athletes are to be commended for their excellent performance, sportsmanship and school spirit. Despite some of our challenges, St. Margaret ended up placing second in their division. We had several students who repre-sented SMS at both the regional tournament and city finals. Thank you to all the coaches: Mr. Kassar, Mr. Belmonte, Mr. Lee, Ms. De-fina, Mr. Saulle, Ms. Simone and Ms. Boulos, we couldn’t have done it without you! We wish our boys and girls soccer teams success at the upcoming tournaments. School Mass Please join us on Wednesday, June 15th, at 9:45 a.m. for our year-end mass at St. Margaret of Scotland Parish. Grade 8 Graduation

The graduates will participate in many activities starting with the year end excursion to Niagara Falls on Friday, June 17th. There will be a graduation rehearsal followed by a luncheon and afternoon dance on Wednesday, June 15th. The awards and diploma ceremony will begin at

6:00 pm on Thursday, June 23rd followed by refreshments in the church hall. Thanks to CSPC for paying for all of the awards and sub-sidizing these activities. Parents are reminded to return the ‘Attendance Form’ back to school by Wednesday, June 15th to ensure the safety of our students and proper attendance recording after Gradu-ation. SK Graduation The senior kindergarten graduation will take place on Tuesday, June 28th at 1:00 pm when we will be honouring our SKs as they move on from the kindergarten ranks to Grade One. Thanks to our Kindergar-ten staff and Ms. Cumine who are working hard to prepare a memora-ble celebration. Parents are reminded that this momentous celebration is restricted to moms and dads’ only (Two seats per child—your coop-eration is appreciated) Play Day Our Annual Year-End Play Day will take place on Monday, June 27th beginning at about 9:00 am. Students in grade seven will be our sta-tion leaders and our grade 6s will captain the teams. All students from grades 1 to 6 will be placed on teams as they collaboratively partici-pate in a variety of activities. We hope the weather cooperates for this important school spirit event. All students will be treated to an ice cream cone at the rest station. Thanks to our committee for all of their support—Mr. Kassar, Mr. Belmonte, Ms. Fernandez, Ms. Egizii and Ms. Boulos Report Cards Parents are reminded that report cards will only include letter grades or percentages this year. There will be no anecdotal comments included. Additional in-formation will be sent home later in the year.

School Agendas We will be ordering agendas for all students from grade one through to grade eight again this year. A school handbook was developed, in collaboration with staff and members of the CSPC, to inform parents of important school policies, and will be included in the agenda as an insert this year. The agendas are important organizational tools and help to pro-mote ongoing communication with the home. They will be sold for $9.00 in September. The agenda will include spe-cific theme based inserts to help our students develop their organizational and work and study habit skills. Year End Reminders All lost and found items will be displayed during the last week in June. Please have a look or remind your children if you are miss-ing any articles of clothing or personal belongings. All left over items will be donated after June 29th. On Wednesday, June 29th, students are asked to bring plastic bags to school in order to clean out their desks and take all their personal belongings home. School materials will be collected by teachers during the month of June. If students cannot locate these items or return them in poor condition, they will be responsible for the replacement costs. As you do your spring cleaning, please look for any lost books, and even if they are from previous years, return them to school.

Music Celebrations Mr. Russo and the Intermediate Band will be performing their annual ‘Celebration of Music’ concert on Wednesday, June 15th at 7:00 pm in the Beatrice Cafetorium. All intermediate parents are invited to attend this performance and witness the

outstanding musical talents of our band. Donations will be accepted that night to defer the cost of our Ice Cream Truck which will be providing a treat to all or our students on Play Day. Share Life Our final fundraiser this year will be to support our Share-Life Campaign. We will be raffling off two Toronto FC ‘Giovinco’ Jerseys this month. In honour of the ‘Beautiful Game’s’ European Cup starting in June this year we will have a dress down Jersey Day on Friday, June 17th. Tickets will be sold for $2.00 each or 5 for $5.00 dollars beginning on Monday, June 13th. One student from each site will have the opportunity to win and wear the Jerseys on this day. Thanks to Mr. Kassar for donating the Jerseys for this event. Me-to-We

We would like to offer our heartfelt thanks to the SMS Community for their ongoing support of our initiatives. Through your generous support we were able to donate $2,277.25 to meet our Global Goal for Kenya and it’s health programs. Thanks to Ms. Carlucci for her ongoing efforts to engage our student body in opportunities for Leadership. Kudos to our many student leaders that led these initiatives. We look forward to continuing our ef-forts to become “Agents of Change—as we move from a Me-to-We Society”

CSPC All our Pizza Days are run by CSPC volunteers with proceeds going towards various worthwhile endeavours for the students of our school. I would like to thank the many wonderful parent vol-unteers who support and assist with so many of the initiatives that took place this year – Pizza Days, CSPC Christmas Party, Fam-Jam, Excursion Supervisors, etc. A special note of appreci-ation to the CSPC executive: Mr. Sinclair (Chair), Ms. Mitchell (Treasurer) Ms. Cortez (Recorder) Ms. DaSilva and Ms. Ander-son. Thanks to all the parents who worked so hard to make this year a positive and productive one. All Parents/Guardians are invited to the next parent council meeting on Wed. June 15 @ 6:00pm at the Beatrice campus. Angela Gauthier, Director of Education at the Toronto Cath-olic School Board will be in attendance. We hope you can attend, ask questions and hopefully learn more about the future of St. Margaret School. Summer Safety As the summer holidays are just around the corner, many stu-dents may be spending more time in front of their computers surfing the Internet for information or chatting online with friends. We would encourage all parents/guardians to remain vigilant and to monitor the online activities of their children. While at school, students adhere to the Board’s Acceptable Use Policy, and online activities are strictly monitored. Internet safe-ty is discussed with the students at age-appropriate levels at vari-ous times during the school year. Parents are also encouraged to review safety and security rules with your children and remind them of the expectations for safe play, school yard safety, and outdoor safety during the summer weather. September 2016 When school re-opens on September 6th, a tentative class and grade organization will be in place. Changes in the month of September can occur due to unexpected enrolment shifts over the summer months. It is the responsibility of the principal to ensure that various needs and abilities are taken into consideration when changes are made. Children will be tentatively assigned to a classroom for September. In the coming weeks staff will be working cooperatively to organize students in classes. Appropri-ate placement is based on educational factors which will benefit all children in all classes. Our goal is to establish balanced clas-ses with effective working groups which are educationally sound. Teachers from both the sending and receiving grades will meet to carefully consider factors: teaching/learning styles; social, emo-tional and behavioural needs; social groupings, male female ratio, previous class placements and other educational factors. If you are moving over the summer or going on a vacation that extends past September 6th, 2016 please inform the school. Bus Safety Parents are reminded that it is extremely important that children are picked up at their bus stop only by the parent/caregiver that we have on file. As the school year winds down, it’s important to reflect on our bus safety protocol. Students who qualify for the transportation service must have proper documentation complet-ed by our school secretary, Ms. Picillo, and faxed to the Trans-portation Department before they can be transported by bus. We want to ensure that our bussing lists are complete and accurate for the start of the new school year.

June is Aboriginal Education Month June 1st, 2016 marks the beginning of Aboriginal Heritage month for everyone in our TCDSB schools. In our St. Margaret commu-nity, through morning announcements lead by our Grade 6 EFI students, we hope to honour Aboriginal people throughout the world. As we aim to reflect on the accomplishments and struggles of the Aboriginal people, especially across Canada, we aim to raise awareness and venture to show the virtue of respect towards the cultural diversity of our nation. From the Board Job Action by Elementary Teachers—Elementary teachers initiat-ed a Work to Rule on May 17th. Stay up to date on any news and information relating to the job action and status of negotiations here: https://www.tcdsb.org/FORPARENTS/News/Pages/Elementary-Teachers-Job-Action.aspx

Changes to Health & Physical Education Curriculum Resources and information can be found on the website here: https://www.tcdsb.org/programsservices/schoolprogramsk12/healthoutdoorphysed/pages/ontario-health-and-physed-curriculum.aspx

Introducing the Year of the Parish Plans are already underway for the celebration of the Year of the Parish, the second year of our three year pastoral plan focusing on Family, Parish and School (Together With One Voice). Schools and parishes are encouraged to explore their collective vision for how they can work more closely together during the Year of Par-ish and beyond, to nurture the relationships that already exist, and work towards making all our schools and parishes feel more con-nected in the mission of Catholic education. Find all the infor-mation and resources for the Year of the Parish here: https://www.tcdsb.org/Board/NurturingOurCatholicCommunity/YearoftheParish/Pages/default.aspx

SMS SCHOOL YEAR CALENDAR 2016-2017 Number of school days 194 Number of Professional Activity Days 7 Labour Day September 5, 2016 First Instructional Day September 6, 2016 Thanksgiving Day October 10, 2016 Christmas Break December 26, 2016 –January 6, 2017 Family Day February 20, 2017 Mid-Winter Break March 13-17, 2017 Good Friday April 14, 2017 Easter Monday April 17, 2017 Victoria Day May 22, 2017 Last day of classes (elementary) June 29, 2017

Six (7) Professional Development Days October 7, 2016 Provincial Education Priorities November 18, 2016 Parent/Teacher Conference December 2, 2016 Provincial Education/Faith Development January 20, 2017 Assessment, Evaluation & Reporting February 17, 2017 Parent-Teacher Conferences June 9, 2017 Assessment, Evaluation & Reporting June 30, 2017 Provincial Education Priorities

https://www.tcdsb.org/FORPARENTS/News/Pages/Elementary-Teachers-Job-Action.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/FORPARENTS/News/Pages/Elementary-Teachers-Job-Action.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/programsservices/schoolprogramsk12/healthoutdoorphysed/pages/ontario-health-and-physed-curriculum.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/programsservices/schoolprogramsk12/healthoutdoorphysed/pages/ontario-health-and-physed-curriculum.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/programsservices/schoolprogramsk12/healthoutdoorphysed/pages/ontario-health-and-physed-curriculum.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/Board/NurturingOurCatholicCommunity/YearoftheParish/Pages/default.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/Board/NurturingOurCatholicCommunity/YearoftheParish/Pages/default.aspxhttps://www.tcdsb.org/Board/NurturingOurCatholicCommunity/YearoftheParish/Pages/default.aspx