School-parish-home connection is key: Catholic trustee

Sudbury Catholic District School Board trustee Nancy Deni recently completed a newly-created online course for trustees.

In 2015, eight universities in Ontario collaborated with the Ontario Catholic School Trustee Association (OCSTA) to create the OCSTA Certificate Course in Leadership & Good Governance.

The course provides a trustee with many benefits such as developing a greater understanding and appreciation of the history of Catholic education in Ontario along with a greater understanding of the role of Catholic social teaching in our modern society.

The leadership lessons of Pope Francis are also explored in the course. Topics include youth engagement in Catholic education, the role of the trustee as a public advocate for Catholic education, support for Ontario First Nations, Metis and Inuit education and an examination of trends in Catholic education throughout Canada and the rest of the world.

As part of the program, trustees are required to work on a practicum project that ideally could benefit their school board.

A relatively new Sudbury Catholic trustee elected for the first time in 2014, Deni chose to focus on the home-school-parish triad relationship and ways that this triad can be strengthened.

As part of her project, she sought and received feedback from parents, principals, priests and laypersons in the church, as she feels very strongly that the strength of this relationship is the key to keeping Catholic education alive and well in Ontario.

"I feel very privileged to be amongst the first cohort of trustees to complete the program," Deni said, in a press release.

"It was an eye-opening experience and I recommend the course to all trustees who want to be strong advocates for Catholic education in this province.

“This course really strengthened my belief that a Catholic education provides students with a really special and unique educational experience. We really do educate the mind, the body and the spirit in our schools."