Our special guest this morning was Brandy Hollinger. R Jeff invited Brandy to share her story.
She grew up in Campbellford and is a Dooher of the Campbellford bakery fame. Her grandfather started it and her sister now owns the bakery. Brandy took a different path, of teaching. She went to Laurentian University and Teachers college at UofT. She started teaching in the Barrie area, also in Ottawa area briefly but back to Northumberland now. She is 23 years as an educator, grades 1 to 7. A lot of her career was with special education. She has been with Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board since 2010 where she has taken on more leadership roles. She is now VP at Brighton Public School.
Brighton Public School has 540 students and about 50 staff. At grade 5 students can start the extended French program and about 50% of the students do. Brighton is the area hub and kids come from other feeder schools to Brighton for the French.
Brighton Public School is also the regional hub for life skills for students.
Students and staff are very happy to be back to business as usual in September 2022. They have assemblies again and extra curricular activities. Today some students are going to Batawa ski hill to learn to ski. They participated in the Terry Fox Run and are planning a play. They had a family craft night and are planning a winter carnival.
They have a Social Justice Club and starting a coding program with robotics for grades K to 8.
It feels really good to be at school.
Brighton Public School has a volunteer who organizes their breakfast program. They feed about 100 kids every morning a nutritious hot breakfast and some for a midday snack for about 40 kids. Students from the life skills program help prepare breakfast.
There budget is about $1,000 each month. This comes from Food for Learning and some from the board.
R Daniel thanked Brandy.