Anglophone East School District marks third annual Indigenous Grad Celebration
It was a significant day within the Anglophone East School District as 24 students from high schools in the area walked the stage for the third annual Indigenous Grad Celebration.
'We've helped support them grow as people and as individuals and when we go to the high school graduations they're dressing in regalia as they walk across the stage and very proud of who they are as individuals, who they are as people, who they are as citizens of their community and citizens of the world,' said superintendent and CEO Randolph MacLEAN.
As part of the district's call to action for Truth and Reconciliation, MacLEAN says work is being done to make sure the district is both 'academically responsive and culturally responsive to indigenous students.'
This includes cultural support workers in schools and an Indigenous Services Team to ensure daily education and support throughout a student's entire educational journey.
'I see it here today, but I see it in classrooms,' he said.
'I see it in classrooms as we do cultural events and students are wearing ribbon skirts or in our peace and friendship spaces in schools and students are proud of their cultural identities and we support them. We see it in our classrooms as we intertwine our Indigenous learnings with the way we teach.'
He says the first year had just three to four students take part in the culturally responsive graduation celebration.
The Legend Catering room at the Moncton Coliseum was packed full of students, their families, school officials and Indigenous spiritual leaders.
Ceremonial Elder Donna Augustine says this event is important because students are being honoured in a traditional way with an opening song, prayer and honour song.
'In the schools, the regular school system, they've learned academically, but in our way, it's just as important or even more important to know your roots, your heritage, who you are,' she said.
Augustine is the Elder in Residence for the AESD and goes to various schools to share culture with students throughout their time at school.
'We don't want our youth to go out there in the world and hold their heads down, we want them to go out there and be proud of their heritage and who they are,' she said.
'When they walk out into this world, they're armed with their culture, their base, their root is that strong culture so as they go out into the world, they're going to excel at everything they do and so we encourage them all along the way.'
MacLEAN says the district will continue to grow and foster this program and way of teaching in the future, bringing together education and culture in a significant way.
Students will also attend their school graduation ceremonies to celebrate their accomplishments as they say goodbye to high school.
For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
29 minutes ago
- CTV News
Chatham-Kent's 50 transitional cabins officially open to address homelessness crisis
Tiny cabins for the homeless population seen in Chatham-Kent, Ont. on Aug. 20, 2025. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor) 50 new transitional cabins in Chatham-Kent, Ont. are now officially operational, part of the municipality's response to what officials describe as a growing homelessness crisis. The cabin project, now known as Pathways on Park, comes weeks after a large homeless encampment was moved and relocated mainly to municipal utilities property, putting a spotlight on the issue. Officials said not everyone from the encampment will be able to move into the new units, but efforts are underway to connect as many people as possible. 'We have around 40 individuals right now that are currently housed at the transitional, temporary shelters here. I think that we have room for 10 more,' said Chatham-Kent councillor Anthony Ceccacci. 'I know that the staffing is going to be doing some outreach to try to get some of the people who are now currently unhoused, and who weren't in a shelter base off the living in the rough and into this program.' Ceccacci said wraparound supports are central to the program. 'It's very important to understand though that this program does require participation,' he said. 'So, there is wraparound services that you have to participate in. Because the goal of this program is to get you off your feet into sustainable and suitable housing.' Tiny cabins in Chatham Tiny cabins for the homeless population seen in Chatham-Kent, Ont. on Aug. 20, 2025. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor) He said small and rural municipalities also need more help from upper levels of government. 'Even small communities and rural communities like Chatham-Kent need significantly more help from a funding perspective, not just for housing, but the actual supports to deal with mental health and drug addiction,' he added. Mayor Darrin Canniff said the cabins reflect how quickly the issue has evolved in the community. 'Back five years ago, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. In Chatham-Kent, homelessness was there, but it really wasn't noticeable,' said Canniff. 'Now it's very much so. We have nearly 250 homeless individuals in Chatham-Kent.' Canniff said the cabins were designed after consulting with other municipalities that have tried similar projects. 'We've got the best of the best with these cabins, and it will make a difference for the homeless individuals,' he said. 'And we hope to pull some people from the encampment … because of just the flexibility, the dignity that it provides to individuals.' Unlike some housing models, sobriety is not a requirement to live in the cabins. Canniff said it's important to meet people where they are. 'That's a big debate point about sobriety, and a lot of the leading edge discussions are pointing to you have to accept that individuals, do have those issues and that to help them, you're going to have to help them through that and to turn our backs completely on someone because they're using whatever, that's not going to help them get better,' Canniff said. 'So, we need to recognize that as part of the treatment, as part of helping them get back into housing and to deal with those issues.' He added that the site has room to expand. 'If those are fully utilized and there's a waiting list, the opportunity to add more, we have land there … so if we need another 10 or 20, we certainly, as a municipality, as a council, will look at doing that.' Residents moving in said the cabins are already a step up from previous housing options. 'It's not bad. It's definitely a lot better than the Victoria Park place,' said Patrick, who was previously homeless. 'We can come and go as we please and we don't have to worry about people just looking in through your window … it's definitely better than sleeping under the bridge.' Advocates said the cabins offer more than just shelter. 'They certainly provide another alternative. And let's be honest, we have to do something different. We know what we've been doing is not working,' said Loree Bailey, general manager at Chatham Hope Haven. 'Yes, people are in tiny cabins, but it's different. They're paying rent … they are having intensive case management, which they have not had historically offered through the municipality.' Bailey said the purpose is to help people transition successfully to permanent housing. The project is also drawing attention from Windsor, where councillor Renaldo Agostino said he is curious to see how it works. 'Certainly anything that we can do to create more supports for people that need them, I'm all for it,' said Agostino. 'I don't know if it's going to work. I don't think anybody knows for sure.' He said Windsor will be watching closely, telling CTV News he plans to tour the cabins in Chatham on Thursday. 'I hear it's pretty much full already, so I can't wait to see it.'
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Local organizations address food insecurity as Alberta students head back to school
Recent Statistics Canada data shows an increase in the percentage of kids facing food insecurity in the province. That is putting pressure on local charities trying to help feed as many children as they can.
National Post
an hour ago
- National Post
This Ontario man raised an illegal wolfpack as pets. Now, they could be put down
Article content Bryton Bongard of Wahnapitae clearly loves his dogs, and the feeling seems to be mutual. At the moment, they are nuzzling his hands, pant legs, pretty much anything they can get their snouts on. Admittedly, he's come into their enclosure bearing treats — doling these out first to five pups, at no objection from the older dogs — but their interest can also extend to items that aren't so edible, or shouldn't be. At one point, as he sprawls out on the grass with them, a dog sneaks in from behind to snatch his ball cap; later, I see two of them playing tug-of-war with it at the opposite end of the pen. That might be salvageable, but other, pricier items have not been. 'They ate two phones on me in the past month,' he casually relates, while navigating the furry swarm. In the first instance, a female named Charlie 'pick-pocketed' him, he says, and 'proceeded to crunch the phone right in front of me.' The next time he threw a phone outside the fence while cleaning up bones inside the pen, 'and one of the puppies stuck its head through, grabbed it, and started to chomp down on it.' The phones were wrecked, but he doesn't really care about that. He's just glad he got them out of their jaws before a tooth punctured a battery, as that could have caused acid poisoning. Trying to eat a phone may sound like a stupid thing to do, but Bongard's canines are actually extremely intelligent, with perceptive abilities that can seem almost clairvoyant to those of us who lack them. The day before my visit, Bongard and his wife welcomed their first child, a baby girl, into their lives. This was not lost on the dogs, whom they claim knew both when the baby was conceived and when she was ready to emerge. 'We figured out my wife was pregnant because one of the dogs, her favourite, was just rolling all over her one day, drooling, rubbing on her,' he says. 'She was like, there's no way he's trying to scent-mark me without something going on, I'm going to run into town and get a test.' It was positive. A few days before her due date, the dogs seemed to know again that something was up. 'They were all over her, giving her a bath, and the one dog licked her right in the belly button,' he says. 'She's like, 'Can we go to the hospital? I think the baby's coming out.'' Their child was born later that night. 'I love it when dogs figure stuff out before we do,' he says. Dogs range from 25 to 50 per cent wolf All canines have better noses and ears than humans, plus an apparent sixth sense that allows them to pick up on hormones. Bongard's dogs, however, are different from your average labradoodle or lapdog, or even a malamute or Malinois. They don't live indoors, and they don't go to dog parks. They number 16, and they function as a pack. These are wolves — or part-wolves, at least — and that is the problem. In Ontario, it is illegal to keep a wolf as a pet, even if it is a hybrid. Bongard says nearly all his mixes have been DNA tested by this point, and they range from 25 per cent wolf to 50 per cent wolf. None is a full-blooded wolf. That's on top of five pups, aged six weeks, that were already seized by the MNR earlier this year, even though they were still nursing. 'They said they were going to take them to a sanctuary,' he says. 'I said, Why don't you take the she-wolf at the same time? They said they didn't have room for her and they would just bottle-feed them.' Bongard says he has asked where the pups ended up, because he would like to know they are in good hands, but the ministry won't tell him. The MNR was not willing to divulge this information to The Star, either. Nor would the ministry speak to other questions we posed concerning the fate of the remaining hybrids in Bongard's care. 'As this is an active case, MNR is unable to comment,' said spokesperson Sarah Fig in an email. 'In general, it's a gainst the law to keep wild animals from Ontario as pets or to hold them in captivity. There are a few exceptions, which are carefully regulated under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.' The most obvious exception is a wildlife rehab facility, but Bongard, who has some experience in this area, points out that sport hunters can also apply to have pens for coyotes and foxes in order to train dogs to pursue them. Coyote Watch Canada, a non-profit advocating 'positive human-wildlife coexistence,' says on its website that pressure from a dog-hunt lobby in 2023 prompted the Doug Ford government to open up more licensing opportunities for this kind of 'bloodsport' activity. 'Once in captivity, with no way to escape, hundreds of hunting hounds and dogs are brought by their handlers inside the pens to 'track' down the captive wild animals,' the organization says. 'Coyotes, foxes and rabbits are chased for hours, harassed, and often maimed or killed by the dogs.' Bongard has seen this first-hand, having grown up in the countryside near Peterborough, among a family who kept hunting dogs and belonged to the Ontario Hound Association. 'We used to train dogs in pens and use them to run down coyotes, and anything that entered the pen would be eliminated as a threat and dumped in the swamp,' he says. 'My family was nothing compared to others in the organization. There have been situations where hunters have dumped wolves into pens as a 'training opportunity' and then just shot them.' The two-acre pen he has now at his rural property in Wahnapitae is really the antithesis of that. His wolf-dogs aren't hunted or harassed, or expected to pull a sled or perform any other task. They aren't a tourist attraction forced to endure endless oohs, aahs and Instagrams. They basically just hang out. They are well-fed — mostly with meat scraps, although on this day they got four dozen eggs as a treat — and they have a shed in which to escape the elements, although in winter Bongard says they are just as happy to ball up in the snow. 'I got out of the (coyote-hunting) sport around 2017,' he says. 'I was just done with it — I got tired of killing things. After I came here and heard about these dogs that were a species I knew, that might have something I understood in them, I thought I could use the skills I had learned to do something good rather than evil.' Authorities got involved after 2024 barn fire Bongard moved to the Sudbury area in 2020, settling at his rural property on Red Deer Lake Road North, not far from the city animal shelter. About a year later, a coworker told him about a friend of hers in the Worthington area who had a wolf. 'I kind of didn't believe it, because who would have a wolf?' he recalls. 'But I was like, okay, I'll bite. She said this guy could use a hand building an enclosure and, in exchange, he would give me some wolf-dogs. I'm like, sounds good to me.' Bongard had built lots of pens during his days running hounds and containing wildlife like foxes and coyotes, so it was old hat for him to pitch in on the fencing project. For his expert assistance, he came away with five puppies. The mother, he says, was a bona-fide wolf that the Worthington man had acquired from a zookeeper in the Sault area. The fathers — the pups came from two different litters — had been falsely advertised online as wolves. To his eyes, they looked like Pyrenees-malamute combos. There's been no puppy mill here or anything like that. I separated them every year in breeding season, even ones that were fixed, because the females get into loud squabbles and the neighbours would think they were trying to kill each other. Bryton Bongard Not long after Bongard got his wolf-something pups, someone complained to the MNR about the Worthington man's wolf. Officials eventually swept in to seize her and eight offspring, for transport to a sanctuary in Alberta, he says. Meanwhile, his own pack had expanded. 'I bred them with other dogs, which drops the percentage of wolf in them,' he says. The idea, he maintains, was never to make money, even though there is significant demand for dogs of wolf extraction, or ones you could pass off as full-blooded wolves, in part because shows like Game of Thrones and Yellowstone have driven up interest in the species. 'There's been no puppy mill here or anything like that,' he says. 'I separated them every year in breeding season, even ones that were fixed, because the females get into loud squabbles and the neighbours would think they were trying to kill each other.' The wolf-dogs aren't invited inside his house, but they do have a couple of outbuildings they can utilize. The bigger one is heated in winter, and Bongard runs fans in summer to keep them cool; the other is more of a lean-to where they can get some shade and respite from snow or rain. 'The enclosure cost me about $30,000 — the fences are eight-feet-high, and go three feet into the ground so they can't dig out,' he says. 'But I don't make any profit from them.' He's never sold a puppy, he says, nor does he charge hundreds of dollars for a wolf experience — as do some other places, including a resort/wildlife centre in the Timmins area. 'It's just appealing to me to have these dogs that I can look at and be with,' he says. 'No matter how bad your day has been, when you come home, they're just happy to be there and see you.' Bongard also had a barn that he previously used to separate his canines — when the females went into heat, for instance — but it burnt down in January of last year. Some of his wolf-dogs were in this structure when the blaze occurred, but he was able to rush out and rescue them. He and his wife sadly lost two pigs and nine goats, along with two husky-mix dogs, which was devastating. But he was relieved that he at least got the wolf-dogs out. 'That was the silver lining,' he says. 'At least they were safe. And then everything went sideways.' The dogs don't need to die for punishment — it's not their fault. I'll be the villain. Bryton Bongard A few days after the fire, he got a visit from an animal control officer. Firefighters had noticed the unusual canine collection behind his house, he says, so may have passed this on to bylaw officials. It's also possible a concerned citizen reported him, although he says he has not heard any complaints from neighbours, and has never tried to keep what he's doing particularly secret. 'The enclosure is in the middle of a field — it's not subtle,' he says. 'It's not like I'm trying to hide it from anybody.' The bylaw officer didn't find much wanting from an animal welfare perspective — 'they basically said everything is good,' he says — but a couple of weeks later, MNR officers arrived. 'The dogs don't need to die – it's not their fault' That was over a year ago now, and Bongard has been in court a few times since, while also working with the ministry on a plan for the future of his semi-wild animals. All are now spayed and neutered, and he has accepted that he won't be able to keep them much longer, heartbreaking as that feels. At this point, he just wants to make sure they go to a good place where they can remain as a unit and be treated humanely. 'Punish me, don't punish the animals,' he says. 'It's not their fault what they are.' His hope has been that they could be transported to the same sanctuary in Alberta that took in the Worthington man's canines. But he worries now that his dogs could be euthanized, based on more recent communication with both the MNR and the refuge facility. The latter told him they don't have the space currently to house his dogs; they are busily fundraising to expand their enclosures, he says, but are still shy about $300,000. The ministry, meanwhile, has begun to use more ominous and vague language, telling him that 'some' of his dogs will be taken to a sanctuary, without telling him where, let alone which of the dogs will be making this trip. 'About a month ago, they said we have to wait and see how we are going to properly dispose of your dogs,' he says. 'I was like, what does that mean, guys? Because in no way does 'properly dispose' sound to me like they are going anywhere near a sanctuary.' Bongard didn't raise any public fuss for a long time, hoping quiet co-operation with the MNR would ensure the best future for his animals. Once the fear set in that they could be put down, however, he put up a sign on his gate stating: 'Please help save our dogs.' That led to concerns being shared on social media and a flood of supportive texts and phone calls coming his way. 'I've had more people coming to visit the dogs now than I ever have in my life,' he says. One of them is Kassandra Belanger, who reached out to The Star to suggest we look into the issue. 'I live in Wahnapitae as well, and my interest is protecting these wolves,' she says. 'I feel the MNR is abusing their power, as they are supposed to protect animals and not put down animals who have done absolutely nothing.' Belanger says she has gotten to know Bongard and believes he has done a good job of caring for the canines, which, in her view, don't pose a huge threat to the public. 'I've met these wolves and they're very well-behaved,' she says. 'They're like dogs.' Prior to meeting the pack, she had driven by numerous times and 'assumed they were just sled dogs,' she says. From her understanding, no one in the area had any issue with them, but 'someone must have made a malicious complaint.' Bongard and his wife are 'super popular in Wahnapitae,' she adds. 'Like, everyone knows these people. They're far out into the bush, so it's not like they're in town, and they've had these wolves for years.' She says the couple has done 'everything the MNR has asked them to do' since conservation officers got involved, including parting with five pups and ensuring all the remaining wolf-dogs are fixed. She feels it would be a betrayal at this point if any of them got euthanized, particularly after they were given the impression that another home would be found for them. 'I reached out to (Sudbury) MP Viviane Lapointe and she directed me to the provincial person, so I've also emailed them,' she says. 'I've posted everywhere, so now this is becoming viral. We need the public to start taking notice of this.'
