Connect Charter School

The Calgary Science School (CSS), renamed Connect Charter School effective January 1, 2014, is a Canadian public charter school in Calgary, Alberta; which teaches grades four through nine.

Today

The Calgary Science School was granted a 15-year charter from the Alberta Government in July 2012. The school is accountable to the charter and the six goals identified:

1. Promote exemplary learning, teaching and leading through a disposition of inquiry.
2. Enhance learning and teaching through the appropriate and effective use of technology and maintain an intentional, authentic and innovative perspective in the use of technology.
3. Engage students in meaningful, real-life learning activities in a variety of rich learning environments, with a focus on mind, body, emotions, creative spirit and ethical citizenship.
4. Provide environmental, outdoor and global education learning opportunities for students to experience and appreciate the world outside of the classroom and to develop social, leadership and stewardship skills.
5. Foster a culture of collaboration and caring relationships of mutual respect with students, staff members and parents sharing a passion for learning; together and from others, in the classroom, within the school and beyond.
6. Nurture thriving classrooms and other learning environments where teachers are informed by research and where students and teachers explore and develop deep understanding as active researchers.

During the 2006 summer break, the school's storage was emptied, and turned into a receptacle, and the old art room was turned into a classroom. The drama room was also moved, into the old board room. At the time of writing, there are 100 students each in grades 4-9.

Over the 2009 summer break the drama/dance room was moved into the old computer lab. In the 2010 school year the school built an Indoor Activity Centre where some dance and gym classes are held as well as the wrestling program.

Fourteen buses, owned and operated by Southland Bussing of Calgary service CSS, taking the majority of the kids to and from school every school day. They operate from the far north of Calgary to the far south. Some morning stop times are as early as 7:00 AM, and school starts at 8:45. One of the drivers was a World War 2 veteran, he retired in late 2006.

The library at CSS

Currently, CSS has over 50 staff members, including janitorial staff, technical staff, office attendants, and those in charge of publications.

Calgary Science School has a large ethnic and racial diversity throughout all 6 grades that it houses. The graduating class of 2004/2005 became the first group of students to move from grade 4-9 in CSS.

Technology

CSS maintains a 1-to-1 student to computer ratio, and it finished the transition from a Windows to a Mac base in the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year. Due to an Emerging Technologies grant from Alberta Education, in the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years, each student received their own Apple MacBook. In the 2013/2014 school year, students in grades 4-6 are provided an iPad, students in grade 7 each have a 13" MacBook Air, and the grade 8-9 students each have a MacBook.

All CSS classrooms are equipped with SMART board technology, and every classroom has a NEC projector and a screen. Classes use SMART boards for creative math and science debates/discussions. All teachers have been given Macintosh laptops when they started working at CSS, and depending on when they came, some teachers have Apple PowerBook G4s, and some, those who joined in the 2006-2007 school year, have Apple MacBook Pros.

School events

• ConnectED Canada Conference: The Calgary Science School hosted the first and second ConnectED Canada conferences. The conference hosted 156 delegates in the first year and 277 registered delegates from across Canada May 24–26, 2013.
• Innovate West: will be an annual conference held at the Connect Charter School, formerly the Calgary Science School, celebrating a network of forward thinking educators in western Canada.
• Lasers got Talent: Groups of students or single students will audition with pieces of music they make, sing and dance to a song or just show off their talents. The best ones perform in front of the whole school. The latest show was on October 30, 2009 when Chase Hadden showed of his yoyo skills and Swish Goswami became MJ and performed on Smooth Criminal.
• Laser Idol: Students use their stunning voices to sing just like in Canadian Idol, but the age requirement is between Grades 4 and 9, rather than between 16 and 28, just like on the show. Just like Laserband, the best singers are picked from the pack and put up on stage to perform for the school.
• Peace Festival: Students enter the gym and circle to many different stations that have different meaning. Since CSS has many different races and religions within the walls, most of the stations represent just that. There are stations where you pinpoint on a world map where you're from, there is a station where you get your face painted, and one station in the 2006–2007 peace festival included fictional stories written by grade 8 students, that were designed to be realistic and show some of the problems street children in favelas in Brazil face every day.
• Lego League: The Calgary Science School periodically participates in FIRST Lego League, as they have since the 2003 edition, Mission Mars. Students are invited to participate either at lunch times or in electives.

Courses

From its first creation in 1999, Science Alberta School enforced a compulsory course known as SAS Quest. When the school was renamed as Calgary Science School, the program became Quest. The objective of this course was to familiarize students with everyday problems in the world and how to solve them. This program was removed in the 2004 school year.

For electives (options) there are many choices including: C02 Cars, Digital Film Making, Photography, 3-D Design and Modelling, Animation, Outdoor Pursuits, Game Design, First Aid, Dance and many others.

Students in some classes have the option to do "Explorer Projects". They are able to pick any topic of their liking, and explore the question until answered. Students often have very wide ranges of subjects.

Recently, the plant room was turned into a woodworking shop, and now for grades 6 through 9, there is an elective started by Mr. Scott Petronech called C02-powered Cars. Students carve and sand wooden cars, load them with C02 canisters, and race them.

References

• Stephen, Cindy, "School shares peace message", Calgary Herald, December 16, 2004. pg. N.1.Fro.
• Lewington, Nancy, "Alberta has 'best-kept secret' in schooling", The Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario). September 25, 2004, pg. F.08.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Calgary Science School.

• Official site of Calgary Science School
• http://calgaryscienceschool.blogspot.ca