Schools bring out the best
by Carole Stimmell

It’s the season of school graduations, when students receive awards for their efforts over the last year. Local educators have also excelled. Teachers from two local schools received Premier’s Awards for Teaching Excellence which recognizes exceptional educators and the contributions they make to student success.

Awarded ‘Team of the Year’ were six teachers from Neil McNeil Secondary School. The teachers, Alan Baigent, Susanna Bellisario, Paul Edwards, Michael Fellin, Nicholas Kovacs and Tony Morale, developed a peer support program to empower students as leaders in helping others.

Vernon Kee from Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute was named New Teacher of the Year for Ontario secondary schools. Kee, an engineer-turned-teacher, had students build robots, create video games and investigate ‘paintball physics’.

Local students have also been busy. Malvern Collegiate student Heather Dietrich is one of the 2009 Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation Excellence Award winners.

When Heather was visiting Kenya on a school service trip, she learned that having a well near a school increases the number of girls who attend. She founded a new club that focuses on the links between education, gender equality and water. Heather coordinated fundraisers to get a new well built in Sierra Leone near a school there. In three months, she raised $1,500. Heather also volunteered in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity following Hurricane Katrina.

Heather will receive an award of $4,500.