Welcome Back Video Message 2024-2025
August 30, 2024
Dear Parents/Guardians, Students and Staff:
It is with great excitement and enthusiasm that we welcome all of our students, families, and staff back for the 2024-2025 school year! We hope you enjoyed a happy and restful summer, filled with quality time with family and friends.
Our Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board (NPSC) family looks forward to the 2024-2025 school year, with boundless hope and optimism as we continue to provide innovative Catholic education experiences for all students we serve in inclusive and caring learning environments where all are welcome, valued, and respected.
As we begin this new school year, our Board remains steadfast in its commitment to fulfilling our Multi-Year Strategic Plan, our ENDS, focused on the key priorities of Faith, Well-Being, Learning, Equity, Indigenous Education, and Innovation.
We are excited this school year to take the next step on our journey of our three-year NPSC Pastoral Plan guided by the virtues of Love, Hope & Faith. This year, we transition from the theme of Love into celebrating the spiritual theme of Hope. Our spiritual theme has been inspired by the declaration of 2025 by Pope Francis as the Jubilee Year of Hope and is in alignment with the 2025 Catholic Education Week theme: Pilgrims of Hope. We look forward to embarking on this sacred year long pilgrimage of Hope with our students, staff, parishes and families throughout the school year. We invite you to take a moment to read our prayer for Hope, written by NPSC Board Chaplain, Father Joseph de Viveiros, C.R.
As we continue to support building foundational learning skills in the areas of Reading, Writing, Mathematics, STEM and Well-Being through our Board’s Student Achievement Plan, we will share updates of progress with our parents, students, and staff, and gather your feedback throughout the school year.
As we prepare for the new school year, we would like to share with you the following important information:
The first day of school for all Kindergarten to Grade 12 students is Tuesday, September 3. NPSC schools are now open to assist with any registration or transportation inquiries.
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Mental Health & Well-Being
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All students will continue to have access to mental health services and supports provided by our outstanding Student Support Services team. We invite parents to review the School Mental Health Ontario resources and timely tools to support a mentally healthy return to school for your child.
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Use of Personal Devices in Schools Policy
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In the Spring, the Ministry of Education released a revised Policy/Program Memorandum 128 - Code of Conduct providing direction to boards to update cell phone policies. In alignment with these requirements, we are pleased to release updated guidelines through the Use of Personal Devices in Schools policy, effective September 3, 2024. The purpose of these changes is to reduce distractions while protecting instructional time, therefore allowing educators and students to focus on teaching and learning during the school day.
Personal devices during instructional time will not be permitted unless their use is for educational purposes as directed by an educator or permitted by the Principal/Vice-Principal, for documented health and medical purposes, or to support special education needs.
Additional highlights include:
- Grade 8 students and under who may have personal devices (cell phone, tablet or smartwatch) will continue to be required to keep the devices on silent mode and out of sight for the duration of the school day.
- Grades 9 to 12 students must ensure their devices are switched off or set to silent mode and stored out of view during instructional time.
Parents may continue to contact their child during the school day by calling the main office.
In accordance with the provincial policy, access to social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram) on school networks and board owned devices will be restricted to help strengthen in-person relationships, communication, and social-emotional skills for students.
We have also updated our Board Code of Conduct as required.
We appreciate your ongoing support and partnership as we implement these updated policies in order to foster respectful, inclusive and focused-learning environments.
Our plant services and custodial staff have been working diligently over the summer months to prepare our school facilities for the arrival of our students. We extend our gratitude to them for their amazing work in preparing safe and healthy school learning environments. Ventilation has been enhanced and improved at all of our school sites over the past three years, serving to optimize air quality in our teaching and learning environments.
At NPSC, we believe that open and ongoing communication with families is key to supporting student success and well-being. We value the role of our parents as the first educators of their children and our shared responsibility in fostering their success. By working together and keeping the lines of communication clear, we create a strong support system that helps every child reach their full potential.
In June 2024, the Ministry of Education issued Policy/Program Memorandum 170 - School Board Communication with Parents outlining standards for responding to parent and caregiver inquiries. As we begin the new school year, we invite our parents to review our communication protocol that supports responding to parent and caregiver inquiries.
We encourage parents to keep connected to your school’s EDSBY for back-to-school information. We also invite parents to find important information at the link: Your Child's Education - A Parent Guide to Our School System.
Be sure to follow us throughout the school year on our website and social media channels for news, upcoming events, and stories featuring our Catholic school communities!
As the new school year begins, we invite our staff, parents, and families to share their back-to-school memories on our Board’s social media channels via #WelcomeBackNPSC
We express our sincere gratitude to our incredible education and support staff, for their unwavering commitment and dedication to our students and the support they provide to our families as they prepare to welcome our students back to school in September.
To our parents and families, we deeply value our strong relationships and the important role you play in your child’s education. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to all our parents and families for choosing the Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board and Catholic education. We are humbled that you have entrusted the care of your child to our Board. We look forward to our continued partnership to ensure the success of your child.
Whether you are new to our Board or returning, we look forward to welcoming your child to our inclusive Catholic learning centers of excellence and to working with you in partnership to support your child’s learning journey.
Should you have any questions regarding the new school year, we invite you to contact your child’s school Principal.
On behalf of our Board of Trustees and Senior Administration team, we extend our prayerful best wishes for a safe, exciting, and successful school year ahead!
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Sincerely,
Paula Mann Shawn Fitzsimmons
Director of Education Chair of the Board