Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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welcome back families.
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So I really hope that you have had an opportunity to get a sense
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of who we are here from the academics from our day to day,
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from just the complexity of our building.
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But
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the amazing aspects of our school,
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what makes our school amazing is that people inside our four walls,
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many walls, but the exterior ones.
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So we've got a lot of individuals, we've got a lot of students from, again,
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across different parts of the city with a variety of different backgrounds,
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with a variety of different interests.
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But one of the things that we have is
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maybe to sum it all up, we've got a well balanced group of students here,
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we've got kids that are talented in the fine arts, talented in their athletics,
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talented in their academics, talented and their passion.
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Just
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overall, we've got an amazing group of kids,
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we are very fortunate and blessed to be able to work
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with amazing people who again have already a background skills,
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abilities and the main thing that makes us great
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is just the people that walk through our doors.
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So when we talk about family, we talk about our
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extended McKernan family of over 600,
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Maybe 660 kids this year, it is an amazing group.
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And so if you're one of those students that is looking to join our school, we really,
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really encourage you to get involved and we really
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encourage you to just give us your best.
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So with that, let's talk about student life here at McKinnon.
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Again, I I already talked about the fact that we have well rounded kids,
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they are well balanced,
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We have amazing families and amazing parents that are really supportive and again,
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it's that part of, how do I become a better student?
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How do I become a better musician, A better
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drama student, A better artist.
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We have kids that are competing in many different activities
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outside of school as well as in the school.
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So there's a lot of passion in our building, there's a lot of pride,
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there's a lot of excellence, there's a lot of just determination to just serve,
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not only, um,
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as as kids are working towards their own goals
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and it's high school and then afterwards into uh,
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maybe post secondary or some trade,
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but it's also that serving of the community and one of
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the things about our McKernan students is we've got leaders,
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we've got uh,
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we've got many opportunities for our kids to be leaders within the school,
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within their classroom, within their programs, but also within the community.
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So when you take a look at the images on the screen, we've got kids via,
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from junior high, working with elementary's, um,
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doing a mentoring or role modeling.
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We've had events like carnival that, um,
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was a celebration of our french language and culture and again, our students are,
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especially junior high students are really taking the lead in terms of
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putting these activities together and working and
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running some of these stations and groups,
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we've done a lot of fundraisers, we've done a lot of awareness pieces,
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be it pink shirt day,
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be it, um you know something that's,
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that's coming up that's important or maybe that's come from the students
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themselves that they wanted to create as an awareness amongst others.
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It's just an amazing place to be.
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We've got a lot of talented kids,
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the passion here runs deep and the service back to the community, the service back to
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be it, our senior citizens, be it, our neighboring elementary schools,
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be trying to connect with the university,
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there is a huge drive that our students have
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when we look at events at McKernan,
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you'll see a long list of events and I'll touch on some of those here
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and one of the most recent ones that we just finished doing last week here,
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McKernan was Carnival.
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Now as you already learned from Mr Horton, we've got the french immersion program,
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be it french immersion from K to nine or late french starting grade seven.
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The amazing part is, as a whole school community, be it our spanish
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or english regular
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are
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academic students,
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we've got a lot of things going on so
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that carnival was an opportunity for us to showcase,
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to show off, to learn about the french culture, to do some french games,
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to do some french dancing, we had a sleigh ride, we had a tug of war,
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we had a bunch of cool games um the kids even got to eat
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and and sample some french
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cuisines and um, it's again, it's just an opportunity to get
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a sense of who we are.
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Expo latino is coming up for us in May and that is
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an opportunity to learn about our spanish side are the language, will,
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will have some spanish flowing through the hallways, will have some spanish latin,
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american uh cultural activities, some dances at mercado
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activity, does, will have a lot of things going on.
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McEwen is full of life. McCartney is full of energy.
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Again, that being the languages, the culture, you just feel it,
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you see it when you're here.
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Um the talent show,
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I have been really bragging about our kids having
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all of these talents and being so well rounded
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in
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usually around the new year, around january,
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we put on a talent show and we've got kids that can do some amazing skills.
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They are talented in music arts, martial martial arts, you name it.
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So that's a, that's a chance for our kids to show off.
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And sometimes we've got our teachers that jump on stage and do some,
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some talents like tap dancing or singing or uh some comedy routines.
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We've got a very strong drama production team here. Um, so are
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um, our kids get involved,
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we've done some amazing drama theater pieces throughout
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the years where we've rehearsed and we've practiced,
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We've done some invites to our local schools and our own elementary and then
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opened the evenings up for parents to get a ticket to watch their child.
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Just
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be an amazing star on stage. We have our
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ski club that the kids go off to
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Rabbit Hill and they're doing their activities,
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they're learning their um almost gonna call it some tricks on the ski hill.
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But one of the things that they end up doing is
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not only are they at Rabbit Hill for a bit,
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but they're also taking off to Marvin And so some
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of the kids that aren't on the ski trip,
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I'm sorry on the ski club.
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Part of me also get to go on those
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um Math Fair,
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let's talk about Math Fair where our math teachers
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work with our kids where they're coming up with
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some amazing games and inventions just put on and
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that's a time where we're going to celebrate math.
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We're gonna celebrate the academic side.
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We're inviting our elementary's, we're inviting the rest of the junior highs
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And again it's just
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can you stomp the teachers,
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can you get a chance to create your own game that's based in Math.
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We've also done again, here's that cultural side of us,
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that spain France trip as well as a Tour de Quebec.
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So in past years we have had some teachers that
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have led the trips either overseas or over to Quebec.
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Again it's just another way to really
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immerse yourself in the language immerse yourself in the culture.
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Have one of those experiences that again cement
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the kids are here because they want to experience,
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they wanted to start opening doors in their future and
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trips and activities like this just really reinforce what we're about
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athletics. So we've got a lot of kids that love the athletic side of junior high, so
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if you are a student that is eager to get into joining the soccer, volleyball,
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basketball, etcetera,
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you know that right off the bat in september it's a short season,
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but right off the bat we're going to get into soccer,
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we do have junior and senior teams, we have junior boys, junior girls senior boys,
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senior girls for most of the athletics that we do now,
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the awesome thing about athletics is that we
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are competing against other schools in Edmonton,
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we're competing
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in tournaments, we are competing um you know we've we've got a,
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we're gonna, I'm gonna break here,
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we've actually got some really talented kids that have done amazingly well
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and um not only has the school maybe got on the top
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placement of that sport,
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but some of our kids who um that's their passion just
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continue to compete or continue to play in their certain sports.
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So you look at the long list between soccer, volleyball, basketball, curling,
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we've had cricket, track and field, slow pitch,
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cross country running,
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so we've got a lot of things going on and again we're quite competitive, so again
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I keep coming back to that well rounded piece at maternity.
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Alright let's talk some clubs.
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So
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at Mckinnon we have
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a variety of different clubs that we've ran in the past,
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we have had clubs that have been brought on by students,
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some of them have been led by teachers and
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others that have just kind of come up organically.
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So when we look at our clubs we've got those three categories and
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you've heard Mr Horton talking about our core values and we seek,
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we learn, we lead,
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they come back again again, that's the D. N. A.
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Of our building, that's who we are, that's that defines what we're about.
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So in that we seek column,
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these are the clubs where students are indicating a passion and interest,
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some curiosity or something that they share with other students that um you know,
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they want to put together now these are the ones that tend to change from
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year to year and really it's the students that are the drivers of these clubs,
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so we've had chess and anime, guitar club, UKulele, drama, life, coding, gaming,
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there's a wide variety of different clubs that go on from year to year.
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So we say the kids,
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hey bring your passion, bring us your interest,
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talk to your friends and if there's something that you don't see a McKernan
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bring it out there uh you know, find a teacher and connect with the teacher,
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let your administrators know a lot of times, we just start somewhere with an idea
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under the we learned category.
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These are the clubs primarily facilitated by teachers
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and provide students an opportunity to learn,
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acquire, strengthen their skills, just go deeper.
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So we've got again ski and snowboard club,
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the garden club running club acquired jazz band, drama handbills,
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our club name of name a few and again these are primarily the ones where the teachers
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recognize that there's a lot of interest and
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so we started working with some of these clubs
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now under the we lead section,
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these are clubs that provide students with an opportunity to make a big difference,
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make their school that much more of a better place and that's where kids get involved
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in a lot of times we've got um you know student council or the G.
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S. A. The um
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thanks
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gay straight alliance.
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And so that's where you know what there are some big issues,
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there are some ways to change their ways to make our community,
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our school community a better place and so be it the politics side,
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be it some of the policies,
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be it working with administration to look at how we can improve when we look at
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the changes that are building,
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has had recently with our student gathering area with the
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basketball court a few years ago with the library,
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there was a lot of students input in there as well as families and
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so there are always some kids that want to be part of the change,
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they want to be part of
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the inner workings of a school.
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They want to be able to go in the community and just make things happen. So,
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you know, we really are looking forward to having students join our our school.
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Um you're gonna hear a lot about our core values of we seek, we learn, we lied,
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I will pass this off to Mr Horton of wishing to have conversations
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with you later on in our Q and A section Families again.
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Thanks for joining us this evening.