In an effort to bring Aboriginal education to students at Hinchinbrooke Public School in Parham, grade 5/6 teacher Kathryn Sawdon enlisted the talents of professional mural artist Maureen Walton of Belleville.

Walton, who has been working as a fine artist for decades and as a professional mural artist for 13 years, is no stranger to area schools. She has worked at a number of different schools creating permanent murals, which she said “bring warmth, colour and a sense of student pride into their daily environments”. She has worked with students to create permanent murals at St. Thomas Catholic School in Kingston and at the Quinte Mohawk School located in the Tyendinaga Territory.

Kathryn Sawdon became aware of Walton's work thanks to Kevin Reed of the Limestone District School Board, who suggested that she contact Maureen Walton to see if she might be available to work with students at Hinchinbrooke. Once it was confirmed, students in Sawdon's class looked at Walton’s portfolio online and together with her came up with an idea for the mural.

The project, which took one week to complete, also included much discussion about current Aboriginal issues, as Sawdon explained earlier this week. “Aboriginal education is a major component of the grade 6 social studies curriculum and there is so much going on right now in the news about it that it seemed a perfect opportunity to offer the students the viewpoints both of the government and the various Aboriginal groups with the idea, so that they [the students] can come up with their own ideas and opinions regarding those issues.”

Students not only learned about the current issues of the day but also studied animal symbols as they relate to various Aboriginal groups. Each student was invited to choose an animal to be represented in the mural.

Working alongside Walton and using acrylic paints on two 4x8 foot sheets of plywood, the students helped her to create a colourful mural that depicts various animals including a coyote, owl, bear, rabbit, snake and turtle, all in a natural outdoor setting. Through the week of January 21, Walton worked with the students in small groups as they blocked in the shapes and painted in the individual animals. Walton explained that the project also gave the students an in-depth understanding of the various steps involved in the design and completion of a large-scale mural project. “The students learned about scaling; how to simplify shapes so that they can be read at a distance; how to apply contrasting colours; and other basic technical skills like how to hold a brush and how to apply the paint.”

Part of the beauty of a project like this is the pride and ownership that the students take in the work, which they helped to create and which will become a permanent part of their school environment.

While Walton and the students usually paint the mural directly on the walls of the school where the project takes place, the HPS mural was painted on plywood with the hopes that it will be moved to the new school in Sharbot Lake after Hinchinbrooke closes at the end of this year. “The students really hope to see it moved to the new school, and staff here said that they will do their best to see that that happens,” Kathryn Sawdon said.

She was extremely pleased with the finished product. “The mural totally exceeded all of my expectations. I feel very lucky to have been able to tap into the skills of an expert and to know that the students have come away with an understanding of art that I could not have given them.”

In turn, Maureen Walton credited Sawdon for the work she did with the students to prepare them for the project. “I was really impressed with the maturity and enthusiasm of the students in the class; not only were they extremely curious and eager to learn but they were also totally engaged throughout the entire process.” Walton was able to bring her talents and know how to the students at HPS thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council.

Prince Charles Public School in Verona recently extended its recycling program by reaching out to different community organizations as part of their Panthers' Pride and EcoSchool programs.

The Panthers’ Pride program aims to encourage students to take care of each other and others in the community and directly ties into the community outreach section of the Ontario EcoSchool program, which is now in its second year at the school.

For the first time at the school, students have begun collecting plastic milk bags, which are sent to church volunteers who crochet them into sleeping mats. The mats are then sent to a warehouse in Mississauga from where the organization Canadian Food for Children sends them out to various countries. Students are also collecting pop can tabs for various organizations, who use them to raise funds to buy wheelchairs and other products.

Used eye glasses, winter mittens and hats have also been collected for those who cannot afford them. Used batteries are also being collected and are sent through the Limestone District School board to area recycling depots.

Kevin Wenkoff, who teaches French at the school, has taken over the EcoSchool program at Prince Charles this year. The program awards points to participating schools in five different areas of achievement, which include teamwork and leadership, energy conservation, waste minimization, school grounds greening, and curriculum and environmental stewardship. Based on their achievements in each category the schools are then awarded points, and based on their score are given either a bronze, silver or gold rating.

This year Prince Charles’ grade 5/6 class French class is leading the school’s Eco team. Students are raising worms to be used for composting and there are also plans this year to continue greening up the school grounds. Students will be involved in a number of initiatives this spring, which will include extending a natural section of the playground in the back of the school, transplanting shades trees, and planting a variety of low maintenance vegetables in a garden plot. The program not only teaches students to care for the environment by reducing their material and energy consumption and reducing landfill waste, but also to care for others in the community by reaching out to those who might not be able to afford basic necessities.

“The community outreach part of Panthers’ Pride is an awareness program that invites the students to take action. It's symbolic of the greater need that people around the world have and it opens up the students’ eyes to those needs,” said Wenkoff.

The Eco team at the school will also be starting their boomerang lunches, which aim to minimize food and packaging waste in students’ lunches.

“The environmental issues of the program of course are huge”, said Wenkoff, “and while we are aiming to conserve energy and minimize waste, the ultimate goal here is to plant the seeds that enable the students to make choices in the future as they get older.”

Wenkoff has seen a difference in the students attitudes towards waste this year. “But really, what we have to keep in mind is that this is a long range project. Where at first I thought that we could make a huge impact on land fill, I now see that what we are making here at the school is a small impact. But we need to remember how that can snow ball into something bigger down the road as the students' imaginations run with it,” he said.

Olivia Minifie and Jack Revell, both grade 6 students at PCPS and part of the Eco team expressed their thoughts on the program.

“I like working with the worms,” Jack said. “The program is great because we are helping to keep the planet greener. We have a garden at our house and have worms and plant vegetables and my sister and I have been ones feeding the worms here at the school, which has been really fun.”

Asked what the program has taught her, Olivia said, “I've learned a lot about recycling and never knew before that milk bags could be used to make sleeping mats.” Both students said that they hope this year to earn a gold certificate in the EcoSchool program at PCPS.

News of the success of a proposal for a $10,000 grant to build a multi-use outdoor classroom at Sydenham High School was received enthusiastically by students and staff at the school. The new facility will serve a number of purposes according to Mike Mol, Head of the Technology Department at the school. Mol made the proposal for the project on behalf of the school back in October 2012 for a grant being offered through Skills Canada and Lowe's Building Centre for a community-based project. He got news in November that the application was successful and said that plans are now underway to complete the final design for the outdoor classroom. He expects construction to get underway by the end of March.

The facility will be named the Dick Hopkins Outdoor Classroom, in memory of Dick Hopkins, a former Head of Technology at SHS who taught for 10 years at the school and who passed away suddenly just before reaching retirement. Hopkins, who had a passion for technology, outdoor activities and non-traditional teaching methods, was also a strong supporter of and organizer with Skills Canada, and many of their staff and student awards have been named in his honour. Hopkins started some of the first on-line classes in the province and he was also instrumental in implementing the robotics competition at Skills Canada. According to Mol, Hopkins “made a huge impact on students and staff at the school. He really loved the idea of the non-traditional classroom so it seems really fitting that we are building this outdoor facility in his name and to honour him.”

The project will include the design and construction of a mutli-use outdoor classroom that will be located west of the main entrance of the school on the front lawn under a large maple tree. The space is laid out in a semi-circle, and will be formed by a combination of retaining walls, interlocking brick, paving stones, natural rock and log construction with two layers of seating that can hold 30 people. Students from the Chain Saw Certification program at the school will be using their skills to construct a row of pine log benches for the facility. The facility will not only serve students and teachers at the school but will also be made available to any individuals or groups in the community who may be looking for an outdoor space to hold events and/or performances.

Over 50 students from three different technology programs at the school, manufacturing, construction and communications, will take part in the project, which Mol said he hopes to see completed by mid-May in time for Sydenham High’s annual May Madness celebrations.

Mol said this kind of project will benefit students by giving them hands-on experience that they otherwise might not be able to get in the classroom. “Students will be working in the field, as they say, doing various types of design, layout and construction and will be working with a number of different materials that they might not otherwise be exposed to,” Mol said. The fact that this is also a collaborative project between students from various programs will allow students to work together who might not otherwise have a chance to do so.

Mol added that the new facility will also help to beautify the community while remembering a much loved and respected member of the community.

Sydenham High School’s principal, Jessica Silver, who strongly supported the proposal from the start, said that she is thrilled to see the project going forward. “It's really exciting and I know that the new outdoor facility will not only get great use here at the school but will also be a great added feature for the entire community to use and enjoy.”

Sharbot Lake Public School, which is slated to close at the end of the 2013 school year, will long be remembered by countless former students and staff alike as one small rural school with one big family feeling.

The construction of the original one-room schoolhouse, which was the first official school in Sharbot Lake, commenced on April 21, 1887 following a public meeting at which a building site was chosen. The schoolhouse was located near the present school, but down the hill and closer to Road 38. It housed students from 1887 until 1930.

Jerome Thomson of Sharbot Lake was a merchant and lumber dealer who moved to the area in 1870, when he was 20 years old. He died at his Sharbot Lake residence on December 16, 1946 at the age of 96. He was also a keen hunter and it was while hunting that he crossed paths with children who did not attend school, an experience that inspired him to become a champion of education in the area. He approached W.D. Black, representative of Lennox in the Ontario legislature, and asked him to consider erecting a school in the north. In fact, before the first school was built, classes were held in one of Thomson's buildings beside his Sharbot Lake home and he paid the salary of the first teacher in Sharbot Lake prior to the school’s opening in 1888.

Thomson, who was elected to Frontenac County Council in 1907 and served until 1913, became warden in 1910. He also served on the school board for a number of years.

By 1928, overcrowding in the Sharbot Lake schoolhouse forced some classes to be moved to the local community hall. The original schoolhouse remained until 1930 when it was decided to build a new, brick, two-room building on land that was purchased from M. Avery, with one room above serving as the principal's office. The new building was where the present day school is now located. Students from various one-room schoolhouses in the vicinity would eventually come to this new school to write their grade eight entrance examinations, a policy that remained in effect until 1937.

In January 1946, this newer school also became overcrowded and the board opted to pay for grade 9 and 10 students to be transferred to Sydenham High School. In January 1947, grade 7 and 8 students were also moved temporarily to the Masonic hall due to overcrowding. As a result, in September 1948 four new classrooms were added and renovations were made to the two original existing classrooms. New washrooms with running water and a new hot water heating system were installed at this time.

In September of 1965, an $85,000 three-room addition was made to the school. The addition consisted of two new classrooms with one all-purpose room below them. When the school officially opened after this renovation, the event attracted over 200 guests. In an article published at that time, the high school’s principal, Robert Joyce, commented on the benefit to older students attending the school, who up until that time were having difficulty adjusting to high school. Joyce said he felt that the new consolidated school would help bring students together at an earlier age and therefore would allow grade nine students entering high school to have greater success in their first year there.

In 1975 additional office space was added to the existing principal’s office. The library at the school, which had been initially located between the two original school rooms, was moved to a new room in the basement in the early 1970s and after a time was moved again upstairs to the main floor. In June 1980 the school celebrated its 50-year anniversary with a reunion organized by the parent teacher group.

I spoke with two residents of Sharbot Lake who worked as staff at the school for years, and who look back on their years there with a special fondness. Pam Woods, who taught kindergarten and grades 1 and 2 at SLPS for over 15 years and who retired in 2009, recalled the school as being “a wonderful environment” to work in. “The staff were incredibly cohesive because we had to work closely together to accomplish all of the tasks that came our way. That is really what accounted for the kind of big family atmosphere that really defined the school.”

John Pariselli, who was a principal at the school for five years before retiring in 2000, said arriving at SLPS from Toronto was like “coming home. … It was a great experience and it was also a different time and generation; a time when the roles of staff were more blurred and tended to overlap, which made for strongly knit bonds among staff.”

Both Pariselli and Woods said they feel that the move to the new school need not remove the big family feeling that was predominant at SLPS. Regarding the feeling at the new school, the biggest factor will be seeing if the adults involved will have the same intent. “No matter the size of the school, it is the intent of the staff there that will set and define the tone at the school,” Pariselli said.

Woods agreed that the closure of SLPS need not be seen as a negative. “It (the new school) obviously will not be as intimate a setting as that at SLPS but I’m sure that plans have been made to accommodate the younger students in the best way possible so that the school functions well as a whole,” she said, adding, “It seems to work at North Addington so it will interesting to see how it works at the new Sharbot Lake school.” Woods said that the older students will surely benefit by the addition of younger students to the school. “Staff will be able to tap into the benefits of inviting older students to take on more leadership roles and that can be a really positive thing. Seeing older students accepting new responsibilities and taking them seriously can be a really wonderful thing.”

* History and old photos were taken from a history compiled by Shirley Peruniak, a dedicated and long-time volunteer at SLPS