MERGEMERGE Christ the King, St. Teresa Catholic Elementary Schools A vision for the Lake Shore Area

Thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening. Since the SARC began in 2008, we have had 3 directors and 2 ministry appointed supervisors so we thought it was important to reiterate our needs and concerns for the Christ the King, St. Teresa impending merger to our newest director Mr. Rodrigues.

Christ The King, St. Teresa MERGE At present the TDSB schools offer the following in the Lake Shore area: –French Immersion at Sir Adam Beck and John English –Arts focus at James S Bell and Karen Kain –Gifted at Second Street –All of the area TDSB schools have been renovated or rebuilt

Christ the King, St. Teresa MERGE While our Lake Shore area catholic schools can boast higher EQAO scores consistently for the past number of years, we cannot compete with the new buildings and specialized programming that the TDSB offers in this area.

Christ The King, St. Teresa MERGE We are also committed to ensuring that the best programming is offered at the new site. Because we feed into an CAP- Arts focused high school, we would like to offer the following: –An Arts focused school – We enter the Lake Shore area Christmas art contest annually. Each year at least one of our students wins a prize.

Christ The King, St. Teresa MERGE On Jan. 4, 2010 the CTK principal sent a letter on behalf of our CSAC to Mrs. Gauthier requesting that CTK be considered as an Art Focused Elementary School. This is a natural fit with Fr. John Redmond, the Assembly Hall and Humber College with their amazing Arts programs as neighbours at the new school site.

Christ The King, St. Teresa MERGE The request was copied to: A. Andrachuk, Trustee V. Burzotta, LTAPP D. Koenig, PHE & Arts Program Coordinator L. Notten, LTAPP A. Sangiorgio, LTAPP J. Shain, Superintendent

Christ The King, St. Teresa MERGE The new school would also welcome the opportunity to offer a Gifted Program. Currently the number of students identified as Gifted in this area are: Christ the King – St. Ambrose – St. Leo – St. Teresa We feel the Lake Shore area can easily support this program.

Christ The King, St. Teresa MERGE The following represents the number of children in the area in closed LD classes: Christ the King St. Ambrose St. Leo St. Teresa Clearly the Lake Shore area does not require this program.

Christ the King, St. Teresa MERGE More than half of last year’s graduating class successfully applied to and are enrolled in Fr. John Redmond’s RAP and/or CAP program. This also shows the commitment of our students to have access to the best possible education.

Christ the King, St. Teresa MERGE –An ECO school – we have finally reached GOLD status at Christ the King and are looking forward to being an example for the province to follow when we include a number of ECO ideas into the new building.

Christ the King, St. Teresa MERGE In summary, we would welcome the following foci for the new school: -ECO School (continue) -Arts Focused (officially label what is already happening) -Gifted Program (add)

Christ the King, St. Teresa MERGE We implore you to follow-up with this and consider the possibility of the new school being an ECO school, Arts focused with a gifted centre for the Lake Shore area. Our standardized test scores and accomplishments to date clearly indicate that we can easily support these programs.

Christ the King, St. Teresa MERGE As we enter into the design phase of this project, these programs need to be formalized so they can be included in the new building. If there is any other information that you require to assist with this decision, please ask. We are ready to assist in any way we can!

THANK YOU Christ The King, St. Teresa Catholic Elementary Schools