A: It was the wintertime, December. I always say to my mom that was kind of mean. So when I arrived, my early impressions were that it was obviously very cold and life was very different. I grew up in Mandeville, in Manchester, and so very much country living and living off the land. Like a lot of families at that time, my mother left to go to Canada to get more opportunities for her children, especially around education. My mother had essentially elementary school education, but she really understood what it could do and what it could mean for her five children, so she instilled that in all of us. So we knew that was why we were suffering through these winters and living in this place that was so different than how we grew up.

I would say, too, that the early impressions in terms of going through school is that it wasn’t easy in the beginning. I was the only Black child in all of my classes until second year university. And so that made a real impression on me because it taught me a lot, obviously, about what I wanted to do as an educator, because I decided really early on that I wanted to be a teacher.

Click here to read more on Hamilton City Magazine’s website.

‘Just so excited’: Flamborough Connects names new executive director

Waterdown’s Colleen Stinson took the helm Nov. 14

By Mac Christie (Flamborough Review) – November 29, 2022

Flamborough Connects has welcomed a new executive director.

Lifelong Waterdown resident Colleen Stinson took over the post from the outgoing Amelia Steinbring Nov. 14 and said she is excited to serve the community.

“My dad was the president of the Lions Club, my mom was a teacher at Mary Hopkins school,” she said. “This community means a lot to me, and being able to give back to the community — having a really meaningful job where the work I do matters and make a difference in the lives of other people?

“So exciting.”

Stinson brings decades of experience in libraries to the role, having worked for the Town of Haldimand public library, the Town of Wainfleet public library, as well as the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board for 18 years and Mohawk College for the last year.

“I’m able to use a career of information skills and bring it to Flamborough Connects,” she said. “Putting a slightly different spin on information, but still being about providing information to Flamborough residents and making sure they have what they need.”

Click here to read more on Flamborough Review’s website.

‘Data rich and information poor’: How a coalition of Hamilton education leaders is analyzing data to better understand student success

Pilot project from Hamilton Community Research Partnership found that neighbourhood and academic stream affect education outcomes

By Kate McCullough (The Hamilton Spectator) – November 30, 2022

For the first time in Ontario, a coalition of education leaders has launched a data-sharing project that aims to make information about Hamilton students’ academic pathways available to researchers and policy-makers.

The Hamilton Community Research Partnership, which on Wednesday released a pilot research project years in the making, comprises six partners — public and Catholic school boards, McMaster University, Mohawk College, the Hamilton Community Foundation and the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) — with a common goal: “to create one data set that would allow us to track students over time,” said HEQCO director of policy, research and partnerships Jackie Pichette.

“Ontario does not have a data infrastructure that researchers or educators can use to assess how our education system is working,” she said.

Pichette said educators “know very little about the students’ experiences” before they begin a program or start at a new school, meaning it’s “nearly impossible” to identify their needs.

“More broadly, it makes it impossible for policy-makers… to understand how our system is working as a whole and how it may be unfairly advantaging or disadvantaging certain groups of students over time,” she said.

Ontario does collect data, but its use is restricted to the government, making the province “data rich and information poor,” Pichette said.

Click here to read more on The Hamilton Spectator’s website.