Your nominees for 2023-2024 Catholic School Council:
Ruth Corpuz
I have been a member of Catholic School Council at Sacred Heart for five years. During this time I held the position of Parish Representative (2018-2020) and Treasurer (2021-2023). I earned my BBA at York University and have a CPA, CA designation. I also volunteer at various organizations including CAYR Community Connections (Treasurer), Girl Guides (Treasurer, 5th Newmarket Ranger Unit) and the Newmarket Food Pantry. I am a proud graduate of Sacred Heart (Class of ‘92)
Natalie D’Souza
I am a Mother and Parent of a current Grade 9 student at Sacred Heart Catholic High School.
I have been an active Parent Volunteer within the York Region District School Board for more than 10 years as well as a current Volunteer with York Region for several organizations.
I had the opportunity as the School Council Treasurer as well as taking the responsibility of planning our epic end of school year Fun Fair events for the last 8 years.
I have experienced first hand the value of being engaged within the school community.
I am passionate about involving other parents as resources and support for their children’s school experience. My goal and vision is to focus my efforts and work collaboratively with the school community to strengthen parent partnerships in education and become part of a dedicated committee committed to helping every student achieve their educational goals and improve their well-being.
Jackie Davis
I am a supervisor with the York Region Children’s Aid Society. I have spent over 21 years in protection. Outside of that, I have volunteered for parent council with St. Elizabeth Seton, medical first responder with St. John Ambulance, fundraisers with schools, and coach baseball for several seasons. I have spent many hours volunteering, but my passion is when my time is spent with a connection to my children.
Rachel Egan
I am a committed volunteer within our Sacred Heart community and with other organizations. I have been actively involved in parent/Catholic School Councils for over 5 years in various capacities at both elementary and secondary schools. I believe in supporting our entire community – students, parents, staff, admin, and teachers, builds a better environment for all. I want to continue to council in an inclusive, welcoming, productive manner that fosters faith and is focused on wellbeing and ensuring achievement for all of our students.
Janice Mellary
I am committed to contributing to finding ways to improve student achievement and to enhancing the accountability of the education system for all SHCHS students. I am dedicated and passionate about positive change and am keenly aware of how important it is for students to be academically and socially prepared for life after high school graduation. I have been a parent of a SHCHS student since 2015 with the exception of the 2020-2021 school year. I was a voting parent member of the SHCHS CSC in the 2017-2018, the 2018-2019 and the 2022-2023 school year and Co-Chair of the CSC and sole member of the Governance Committee in the 2021-2022 school year. I am motivated, inspired and excited to continue working to help redirect the council back to its intended purpose under Ont. Reg. 612/00, to continue to explore/recommend changes that will facilitate enhanced school-to-home communication and to support instructional excellence and programs that will promote instructional use of 21st-century learning skills and optimize the learning environment for our children. I have a lengthy history with the YCDSB as a mother of three children. Some of my experience learned from my eldest, who introduced her parents at a young age to the Board administration and processes when she skipped a grade. Not the easiest thing in the world to navigate but definitely the first time I successfully challenged the accountability of the education system. A Sacred Heart graduate, she is currently a M.Sc. student having just completed, with Distinction, a Biomedical Science Degree at the University of Guelph. She was very involved at Sacred, and at the Board, in various positions including that of President of the York Secondary Catholic Presidents’ Council. I often heard some of the frustrations she and her friends faced as students and as student leaders and I believe it is important for us to listen to the students. Feedback from the SHCHS community including students and parents is of prime importance in securing positive changes.
My middle child had a challenging journey attending six schools in four years to access the courses and content relevant to his educational needs and interests. His journey allowed me to get a glimpse of activities and happenings at other Boards and schools, seeing what seems to work and what doesn’t and allowing exposure to some pretty amazing programs outside of our Board. He successfully navigated the many schools and is in his second year of Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo. Because of him and his classmates I lobbied for removal of AP fees for students identified as exceptional, gifted. No student should be limited in the education they get at a public school because of funding issues. The Board approved AP Fees in October 2015. When it came to my attention and I voiced my concerns at the Board level, that this was in conflict with the Education Act, my concerns were ignored. I did a lot of research via reading of Board meeting minutes, policies, and government documentation. I summarized all instances of information re AP fees between 2015 and 2021 and I concluded that as giftedness is a subsection of an Intellectual Exceptionality that identifies students with special education needs and as YCDSB has elected to use AP as the Special Education Plan for gifted students in the Secondary stream and the Education Act states that the Minister shall ensure that all exceptional children in Ontario have available to them appropriate special education programs and services without payment of fees the Board could not justify these fees for identified gifted students. I also concluded that for non-identified students that I believed that a review was required and fee amounts should reflect the actual cost of the services or materials provided adding that a transparent accounting of the amounts collected and expenditures allocated must be made available to the school community. I conversed with the Superintendent of Special Education when my initial document letter was considered invalid due to legal vetting in 2019 but I continued to communicate with the Board urging them to be sure that when the enhancement fee was reviewed/vetted that Special Education Legislation was part of the process. I stressed the importance of reviewing an April 28, 2020 Report to the Board of Trustees which states, “Currently, there is no cost to run the Pre-AP Program.” I voiced concern that I could not understand how any of the listed enhancement fees could be justified as a flat fee. I received communication that my concerns had been shared and a report would be presented to the Board of Trustees to address the fees. On May 5th I received an email from Dominic Mazzotta, the then YCDSB Chair, noting, “The Board has passed the following motion: “That the current practice of collecting annual AP enhancement fees be discontinued effective September 2021…” I am not afraid to work for positive change. In 2019-2020 we learned that Sacred would not be offering Grade 12 AP Physic, AP Functions and AP Calculus and they did not think that they would be running in the following year even though it is designated as an AP school and is the feeder school for the PACE students. Many letters later my son was transferred to Father Bressani CHS in Vaughn where these courses were running and Sacred has since successfully reinstated a number of AP courses. Recently the Board updated Policy 606 and I sent in feedback. I am not sure what happened to my feedback but am currently awaiting a response from Ms. Sarna in this regard as there are a number of issues with the recently approved Policy that I believe still need to be addressed. Be assured that I will continue to follow up until resolution. Professionally I have successfully run my own business for over 20 years, reviewing and analyzing medical legal files, performing biomechanical analysis of surveillance videos, functional capacity evaluations, ergonomic assessments, physical demands analysis etc. Prior to this I worked in the regulatory environment through the Financial Services Commission of Ontario, approved as a Designated Assessment Centre assessor by the Ministers Committee on the Designated Assessment Centre system. I have sat on the Consumer Advisory Council, a sub-committee of the Board of Directors of Tarion, an administrative authority overseen by the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services for the maximum six years, (three, two-year terms) ending in December 2022 and have attended governance training from Dr. Richard Leblanc, one of Canada’s leading experts on corporate governance and accountability. I currently have a daughter in Grade 10 at Sacred and would love to continue to contribute to our school’s CSC.
Mary Jo Nabuurs
I am a Sacred Heart alumna. I have been active in various roles on Catholic School Councils across the elementary level (Our Lady of Grace, Aurora and St. Paul, Newmarket) for 14 years. I have been an active part of SH’s Council for six years and hope to be for the next two, as well as part of Council for St. Max where my third child now attends.
I find being on Council provides a greater understanding of the inner-workings of the school and of the SH school community as a whole, and provides several ways in which to contribute to the school’s continued success.
Kelly Pickard-Lefterys
I have served on Council as the Parish Rep. and am happy to continue in this or any other capacity. I have been a parent at Sacred since September 2017. I am a retired teacher and Religion consultant and now working as a Real Estate Agent. I am looking forward to working with the CSC at Sacred in the year ahead.
Crystal Slattery
My name is Crystal Slattery. My professional role revolves around being a Law
Clerk with a specialization in Family Law. Beyond my career, I have a deep passion for reading, camping, and cherishing moments with my family. My child is currently enrolled at Sacred Heart School, where they are in the 10th grade. One aspect of my life that I hold dear is my strong advocacy for mental health awareness and support. Last year, I had the privilege of serving on the school council, an experience that I found truly rewarding. Collaborating with other dedicated parents who share a genuine concern for our students and the well-being of our school community was nothing short of wonderful.
Dana Tolles
I have been a council member for the last 8 years at St. Nicholas CES. I have also been elected as Council Chair for 4 years at the YRDSB, where my youngest daughter attends. I look forward to helping our secondary students and community as a Sacred Heart Council member through my background experience as an active parent member and community engagement support.