ARCHIVED—Recipient Bios
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Year: 2000 – Province: Quebec
Certificate of Achievement Recipients
Benjamin Bartucci , Hisham Abdel-Rahman , Judith Leonard
School: The Alternate School
276, boulevard Queen
Saint-Lambert, Quebec J4R 1H7
Principal: Judith Leonard
School Telephone: 450-466-3122
School Fax: 450-466-3108
Grades/Subjects Taught: All senior high school subjects in an alternative learning environment
Teaching Approach:
- Place full responsibility for change directly on the student.
- Use teacher accountability, extended counseling and community-based projects to help bring about this change.
- Make essential and lifelong learning a priority.
Outstanding Achievements:
Team leads at-risk students to success in school and life. Program addresses the needs of troubled youth and young adults and fosters their overall growth towards a balanced and productive life:
- in 2000, 93 per cent of graduating class graduated
- annually, 75 per cent of students return to mainstream education, continuing on to CEGEP
Team creates a dynamic and secure learning environment:
- individual education plans stressing mastery of languages
- small group work and cooperative learning opportunities
- core groups of 15 to 25 students
- cross-curricular programs, including public speaking and student-run businesses.
Nurtures responsibility and changes of attitude with unique credit courses:
- Community Volunteerism puts a face on potential victims of criminal activity through work with the homeless, sick, elderly and physically and mentally challenged
- Gender Studies challenges social expectations and stereotypes, encouraging students to examine their assumptions
- Student in Society takes a multidisciplinary approach to current events and helps students develop critical thinking skills.
Rave Reviews:
"These teachers' sense of genuine interest for the emotional, physical and intellectual well-being of their students never wavers." Parent, foster parent
"I prefer to call them Turnaround Teachers, as they have changed hundreds of students' lives through a seemingly tireless will to develop the hidden wealth of human potential." Nominator