Music composed by students at St. Brother André Catholic High School in Markham, Ont., is the official theme song for this year’s Catholic Education Week festivities across the province.

It isn’t just during a time of pandemic that the world has an overwhelming need for hope. It’s something that is always on the agenda in Ontario’s Catholic schools, says Anne O’Brien.

OAPCE has been the voice for Catholic parents in Ontario’s education system for 80 years and it has no intention of letting that voice go unheard.

Kent Shadwick has seen all kinds of numbers that suggest the youth of today are facing a future that includes a rise in skin cancer cases.

As principal of St. Sylvester Catholic School in Toronto, Roy Fernandes believes in setting an example of what it means to live a life full of passion and purpose. 

I don’t go to a Catholic high school, but I have friends who do. Some of their stories suggest a failure in the Catholic education system that makes me feel relieved that I’m not their classmate. But I think if schools continue down this path, we are endangering the future of Catholic values in society, which is disheartening to me.

When I was elected student trustee for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board a year ago, I had no idea what to expect. What I have learned leaves me both grateful and hopeful.

The kids at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener, Ont., are breaking down walls with science, or more accurately, one particular wall in the middle of their school gym. 

To the boys on the senior high school soccer team, it was only natural to reach out to people their age who were suffering in the northern part of the province. 

Michelle Dubre cried with joy when she heard the news. 

Twenty-four Catholic high school students and five adult supervisors gathered in Consuelo, Dominican Republic, to debrief our day. We had toured a batay (sugar workers’ village) outside the city along a road that by Canadian standards would be considered impassible.

Bigger is better and if we don’t get better we’re going to get beat, is the message one religious education teacher has brought back from a giant American convention for Catholic teachers.

Canada is fortunate to have sociologists like Reginald Bibby working in the field of religious attitudes. His most recent book, Canada’s Catholics, should be on the desk of all administrators, trustees, teachers and priests.

In my first year off the farm as an undergraduate at the University of Regina, I took a part-time job driving a school bus for a local company.