The first year with Grade 7 and 8 students at Wallaceburg District Secondary School went “exceptionally well” according to the vice-principal in charge of the new wing.
“Better than I really could have hoped for,” said Lisa MacDonald, VP at WDSS.
“What kind of sums it up was I was on the Grade 8 grad trip last week on Thursday and one of the Grade 8 students, just out of the blue said ‘Mrs. MacDonald, I just have to tell you, this had been just the best year of my whole grade school career.’ I said, ‘I’m glad to hear that, why is that?’ He said ‘you know it’s just so cool to be part of an intermediate school where we got to meet all new friends, we were treated like young adults, we got to help out, learn things about the high school program, more freedom, some more expectations for leadership.'”
“I was blown away and we have been getting feedback like that all year,” MacDonald said.
After an accommodation review process was conducted in Wallaceburg, it was decided that D.A. Gordon would close, and Grade 7 and 8 students would be shifted to Wallaceburg District Secondary School.
MacDonald said there were some challenges along the way, particularly with the facilities.
“When you add 150 people to a building over night there is growing pains about times,” she said. “We don’t want all our Grade 7-8 students out in the hall at the same time we have our Grade 9-12 students on their breaks. Making traffic flow makes sense. Making sure that when we are talking about the field use or the gym use or the music room. We just had to have conversations about how we were going to do that.”
MacDonald added: “This school community works so well collectively and is so accommodating and thoughtful. Everybody is really in it for the well being of all the kids in the school… all of those conversations were fruitful and productive ones. We were able to land with solutions pretty quickly.”
Logistics about bus pick-up and drop-off and the scheduling of time slots at the Sydenham District Pool were items that needed to be adjusted once the school year began.
“Some things that kind of came organically from the students as well,” she said. “We had adults servings the snack program but then it became really clear that the students wanted to help out with those kind of things as well so now the students take care of that in the morning and also collect when the classes are done with their snacks.”
MacDonald said the students adjusted well moving from the smaller schools to the larger school.
“It’s so neat to see students who maybe would have a peer group of one or two other friends in their former schools, just because of the smaller numbers of students. Here those kids have wide groups of friends. The people who come here to visit, if I have a supply administrator come in or anybody who is coming through for a visit, says you know you look out in the field or in the classrooms and all the kids mix together extremely well.”
MacDonald added: “We made a real point of really working to create an inclusive and empathetic community here and we have that. I can say really strongly that students are very caring and thoughtful towards each other. We have very, very, very few discipline issues. Frankly it’s a rare time that I am used to deal with anything discipline wise because just a great community has been created here.”
MacDonald said the interaction between the 7-8 students and the high school students went very well.
“The 7/8 students became very comfortable sooner than we thought really,” she said. “At the beginning of the year we had a set up that any students that were going down to the main office to pick up something that was dropped off, or take a phone call or whatever, they always went with a group. The large groups always travel with their teachers but if there was a smaller group that needed to go. The kids were telling us, ‘I don’t need someone to go with me, I can go by myself.'”
“So we brought that to school council and had a discussion and we changed our policy. We now make sure we have this conversation with students to say ‘you are welcome to take a buddy or you are welcome to go yourself.'”
She said the secondary teachers have talked about the vibrancy the younger students bring to the building.
“It’s great to see them in the library. The 7-8’s use the library to a huge degree. I know our librarian has done a lot of work with our 7-8 students and she says ‘they are so keen to learn and have just a joy about them.’ That has been really great for our school.”
MacDonald said she will not be returning next year to Wallaceburg, as she is taking over as the principal at Dawn-Euphemia Public School.
Taking over as the elementary vice-principal at WDSS will be Ryan Myers.
“He is going to being some new expertise,” MacDonald said. “He’s got a very strong background in athletics and he is from Chatham area and has some strong ties to Wallaceburg community and staff here as well. He is very excited to be coming in and working to just build on what we started this year.”
The last day of classes at WDSS this year is today, Thursday, June 25.
