New technologies at merged school

By Zander Kelly

The new principal of St. Teresa of Calcutta Elementary School is not new to her students or staff at all. The school, located on Chandler Road, is formed with students of St. Bernard and St. Jules elementary schools, which are now closed.

Elise Daragon is proud of her staff and students and the new facility she is leading.

“We have a lot of technology,” said Daragon. “iPads, Chromebooks, we’re almost at a ratio of two students for every one portable device.”

Technology is providing help for the computer programmers and IT specialists of the future, while staying fun and easy to learn for young students.

Daragon has a long history of education in the Windsor area. She has taught at over five schools during her 35-year-long career.

Even though this is the first year students of both St. Bernard and St. Jules have shared a brand-new building, the two groups have been integrated for much longer.

“We did a lot of transition work and planning over the past two years,” said Daragon.

“We did play-days together, we did camping excursions, we’ve done field trips together so the kids had exposure to each other already.”

St. Teresa of Calcutta Elementary School has a security pass-locked entryway, secure classroom doors and all manner of advancements in education. Students can begin to learn the basics of programming by using iPads and remote-controlled robots or build their own robots out of lego with Block Coding.

Suzanne McLaughlin is a kindergarten teacher at St. Teresa’s, with 16 years of teaching experience herself. She has been teaching kindergarten for much of that time and is welcoming the new technologies, which will keep the parents of prospective students informed after kindergarten registration is over.

“We are connected (to our parents) with Remind App and we have speaker systems throughout the offices and the rest of the school too,” said McLaughlin.

The school has some work to do including getting the grass outside laid down, but it is easy to see St. Teresa of Calcutta Elementary is a fine addition to the Windsor educational landscape.

St. Teresa is one of 36 Elementary Schools in the WECDSB. Kindergarten registration began in late February for the 2018-2019 school year.