The playground was busy as kids and parents waited for the bell to ring on the first day of classes on Wednesday at CAPE School.--NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Students at CAPE School returned to classes Wednesday for the new academic year.
CAPE began almost 30 years ago, operating as an independent school for one year and becoming a charter in 1995. The school moved to its current location on Fifth Street SW in January 2019.
Both students and staff numbers remain the same as last year with the school not experiencing any changeover of staff this year.
CAPE has started prior to the Labour Day weekend for many years. The first few days of school is for students to get back into the environment, routine, rules, expectations and reacquainting themselves with their classmates and teachers.
“They go for their long weekend and come back and we hit the ground running. We used to do it the other way around, coming back after the long weekend, and we lost those four days to introductory activities,” said superintendent Teresa DiNinno
The first week is also a time for families to come in to work with the staff and look at goals, ambitions and concerns they have for their child. What supports a child might need – whether that be emotional, behavioural or academic – and what strategies need to be put in place to help the student excel.
“We generate from that a collaborative plan for each child. That includes a personalized program plan because we have a personalized program. Each child has a program that is not quite the same as everyone else,” explained DiNinno. “We are all different and we all learn differently. We are all at different levels even though supposedly we are all in the same grade.”
Programs returned as much as possible to what they were before the pandemic last year.
“The chaos that COVID brought about – not just for students and their academic learning, their social adaptation and social skills, their ability to cope – it also affected the adults, families of students and staff. It was a challenge,” said DiNinno.
The school returned to school-wide as well as individual classroom activities that had been done in the past, such as the science fair, heritage fair, school wide drama and show and sale.
“The Winter Feast got a little sidetracked because of all the things that were happening,” explained DiNinno. “It ended up happening at the end of the year instead.”
The students also got to go on some year-end field trips. Younger students remained closer to home while some of the older students spent a couple of days away at an Indigenous charter school that is about two hours from Edmonton.
After-school sports teams were also back on track participating in intramurals within the city. The school is working on building more after-school activities for this year, such as clubs and more intramural teams.
“Considering the upheaval of COVID and everything that went along with it,” said DiNinno, “last year was really an amazing year because we were actually able to get back to those beautiful things we used to do with out students and their families.”
Lea Drysdale was dropping off her son Evan (Grade 4) and daughter Emily (Grade 7) on the first day and said CAPE has been a great school for all her children. They travel from Ross Glen each day, which is about a 12-minute commute. Their older brother is going into Grade 10 at Hat High after attending CAPE until Grade 9. Drysdale said he is feeling somewhat smug about not having to start school this week like his siblings.
