Tony Sykora dedicated his entire life to advocating, promoting, and celebrating Catholic education in Canada. Sadly, Mr. Sykora is no longer with us; however, his outstanding contributions to Catholic education in Canada will live on for generations. For his achievements, he has been named the 2019 Higgins Award winner.

The Higgins Award is awarded annually in honour of distinguished Canadian jurist and Catholic School Trustee, the Honourable Justice James Higgins. CCSTA’s Board of Directors presents the award to a person or group that has made a long-term, exceptional contribution to Catholic education in Canada. The Higgins Award is the highest honour provided by CCSTA.

Mr. Sykora was nominated for the award by the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association (ACSTA).

Read more: Tony Sykora named 2019 Higgins Award winner posthumously

As Catholics, few things are as rewarding as coming together with our colleagues from around the world to learn, grow, share, and connect. There are several such events happening over the next few months (some of them right here in Ottawa) and we’ve put together a list of the major ones.

CCSTA President Marino Gazzola and CCSTA Executive Director Julian Hanlon will be attending as many as their schedules allow, and we invite everyone to consider doing the same. These gatherings are always inspirational experiences.

Read more: Upcoming Catholic education events

The St. Clair Catholic District School Board has always made it a priority to consult with their wider community when developing strategic plans. So, when Director of Education Deb Crawford learned about an online tool that could make community engagement more accessible, inclusive, and far reaching, she was interested immediately.

“We were looking for ways to expand our strategic planning process,” says Mrs. Crawford. “We wanted to hear from a wide variety of voices, so that the people in our community would see themselves in our strategic plan.”

That’s where the online tool Thoughtexchange comes in. It’s a platform that allowed community members to give their thoughts on how they believed Catholic schools could better prepare students for the future. They were also able to see what others had posted and give those thoughts a rating. This simple process of providing your own thoughts and rating the thoughts of others has resulted in some incredibly valuable insight into their community’s priorities, says Mrs. Crawford.

Read more: St. Clair uses technology to give whole community a voice in creating strategic plan