Westmount Secondary School

Infobox_Education_in_Canada
name= Westmount Secondary School
motto= Laboris Dulcedo
streetaddress= 39 Montcalm Drive
city= Hamilton
province= Ontario
postalcode= L9C 4B1
areacode= 905
phone= 385-5395
fax= 574-6020
url= http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/westmount/
schoolnumber= 952478
principal= Mr. Rick Kunc
viceprincipal= Mr. Jamie Nunn, Ms. Moffat
schooltype= High school
grades= 9-12
mascot= The Westmount Wildcats
lastupdate= March 28, 2006

Westmount Secondary School is a school in Ward 8 of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The school is known for its unique self-paced learning program.

tudents

As of the 2007-08 school year, there are approximately 1300 students enrolled at Westmount Secondary School. More than 80 percent of graduates end up going to university or community college - one of the highest among schools in Hamilton. The school currently has one of the highest passing rates for the Grade 10 Ontario Literacy Test in Hamilton, achieving a percentage in the high 90's for several consecutive years. Also, student violence and bullying are low at Westmount, making it a friendly and safe place for learning.

Curriculum

Westmount is the only school in Hamilton, and one of the very few in Southern Ontario to offer courses in a self-paced learning environment. Started in 1990, each credit course is organized into twenty units with each unit or group of units packaged as a "Learning Guide". Students can then work at their own pace through the guides, accelerating when able and taking additional time when needed. Students must still attend school daily but participate at their own pace through the lessons, presentations, and group activities outlined in the "Learning Guides". In addition to being allowed to work at their own pace, Westmount students are allowed to "sign out" of their classrooms with the teacher's permission, and go to another area of the school, such as a different classroom, a computer lab, or the library. This 'sign out' privilege is generally restricted from Grade 9 students

Westmount has included Flex Day to the 2007-08 school calendar. Normally one Wednesday per month is selected for Flex Day. Flex Day is a day to allow students to design their own schedule in order to catch up or fast track in their classes.

Teams and Clubs

Athletics

Hockey

Coached by J. Timofejew and S. Ormond, the 2005-06 Wildcat hockey team played competitively throughout the regular season, ensuring the team got a playoff berth. After making it to the city finals, Westmount came out on top, beating out Westdale Secondary School for the city championship. In the 2006-2007 season, the team was entered in Division A, and was captained by Lucas Jervis.The women's hockey team had made it to the city finals in 2007, losing to Delta Secondary School.

wimming

The Westmount Wildcats swim team started in 2004-05 and qualified previously unprecedented seven swimmers for the provincial competition. Swimmers on the team are coached by Kelly Wahlman.

Westmount qualified several swimmers for the OFSAA competition in the 2006-07 season, and managed to set a new record in the Boys Open 4x100 metres Freestyle Relay.

Curling

The 2004-05 and 2005-06 Wildcat men's curling team, composed of Nik Moriopolous, Stephen Lewchuk, Joel Eastwood, and Brad Chapel (with Brandon Halchuk as alternate), won the SOSSA championship, advancing them to OFSAA. The team was coached by Richard Brooks and Martin Cox.

Track and Field

The "Annual Wildcat Invitational Cross-Country Meet" is held by Westmount at Churchill Park, hosting over 1000 students from 70 schools in the Southern Ontario region.

Visual and Performing Arts

Westmount Spirit Dance Team

A spirit dance team consisting of about 20-25 students. This year they competed in the Cheer Alliance Nationals competition, coming in 12th place out of 15 teams. The team is hoping to return to the school's former glory of National Champions soon.

Westmount Music

Headed by Mr. Ted Bohn and Mr. Paul Burnip, Westmount's music program is widely recognized as one of the top music programs in Hamilton. Ensembles include the award-winning Wind Orchestra, various levels of Jazz ensembles, Repertoire Band, Pit Band, Clarinet Choir, Brass Quintet, and a grade nine band. Every year the department not only hosts a silent auction, which raises thousands of dollars for the department to spend on equipment, but also hosts several concerts featuring numerous bands including both junior and senior invitationals. On several occasions, Westmount's Wind Orchestra has also been invited to play at Convocation Hall with bands from McMaster and Cornell Universities. Westmount Music students also have the opportunity to go on several trips with destinations including New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Cleveland. Westmount Music is always expanding with the recent incorporation of a vocal program, directed by Ms. Krista Wegner.

Westmount Mac Lab

Westmount has a separate computer lab with a variety of Apple Macintosh computers located in Room 120 (frequently referred to as the "Mac Lab"). This computer lab is primarily where Westmount's Media Arts course takes place, which is taught by Mrs. Hatinen, Mrs. Hodgson and Mr. Bulger. The course focuses on sound editing, video editing, image editing and photography, using programs such as Apple's Garageband, iMovie and Final Cut Express and Adobe's Photoshop and After Effects [ [http://fcinternet.hwdsb.on.ca/~westmount.webmaster/ Westmount Secondary School ] ] . The room is also frequently used as a display of Westmount's unique learning environment, and is toured almost weekly by grade 8 students from feeder schools. The number of students taking the Media Arts course has drastically increased since the room switched from using HWDSB standard IBM/Lenovo computers to the Apple Macintosh machines in 2004.

The room currently has 10 Apple iMac and 12 Apple eMac computers, as well as 4 digital cameras for the photography units.

Film Festival

Westmount holds an annual Film Festival, where student-created films are shown to the school. Most are of a high standard, with students putting a significant amount of their time and effort into them. Past festival winners include,:2004/2005: No Awards Given:2005/2006: First place: Harrison Cruikshank for "The Magnificent Montage":2006/2007: First place: Andrew Scott for "The Unreal War II":2007/2008: First place: Harrison Cruikshank and Joel Eastwood for "Harrison and Joel's Movie"

Biannual Theatre Production

Every other year, Westmount's drama department produces a musical. Past productions include,:2002/2003: Annie:2004/2005: The Wiz, starring Samantha Walkes, with Amanda McEwan, Riley Tydd-Whiting, Jenna Lane, and Shawn Stewart:2006/2007: Oliver!, starring Nikki Campbell, with Colin Palangio, Samantha Walkes, Jeremy Gleeson, and Riley Tydd-Whiting.:2008/2009: Fiddler on the Roof, starring Colin Palangio, with Kaleigh Gorka, Alyssa Curto, Erin Burley, Alyssa Nedich, Kyle Buttenham, Jeremy Gleeson, Scott Beaudin, Laura Welch, Brian Foley, Emily Lamond, Naomi Zagala, and Colleen Majik

Ontario Sears Festival

Every year, Westmount's drama department enters a group of students to perform a one act play in the Ontario Sears Festival. Previous entries include::2003/2004: Hedges, Starring: Sarah Beaudin, Marty Birthelmer, James Beattie, Cameron Lapp, Annalee Flint:2004/2005: Variations on the Death of Trotsky, starring Marty Birthelmer, Annalee Flint, Nikoletta Popodopalos, Sarah Beaudin, Julia Turner, Jordan Hazell:2004/2005: Cameras, directed by Amanda McEwan and starring Amanda McEwan, David Walpole, Jessica Hinkley, Julia Turner, Marty Birthelmer, Shawn Stewart, Samantha Walkes :2005/2006: The Potman Spoke Sooth, directed by Amanda Harvel and starring, Sarah Beaudin, Cameron Lapp, Stephen Alphonse, Annalee Flint, Riley Tydd-Whiting, Jessica Hinkley, Aaron Lupton, Alana Easto, Mike Vegh, Coli Palangio, and Samantha Wlakes. Amanda Harvel received an award of Merit for Directing, and the cast received an award of merit for ensemble acting.:2005/2006: What. Tragedy?, written by Leah Eke, Amber Passchier, Brendan Wilson, directed by Amber Passchier and starring Leah Eke, Amber Passchier, Brendan Wilson, Cameron Lapp, Jamie Burton, Anthony Fascione. Amber Passchier won the award for best student written play, and Anthony Fascione won for fight choreography. :2006/2007: Do Not Go Gentle, starring Julia Turner, Nikki Campbell, Riley Tydd-Whiting, Melissa Mrmak, Alana Easto and Jenna Elzein. Awards of merit were given to Alana Easto, Julia Turner and Nikki Campbell for their characters. Nikki also got an Award for set design.:2007/2008: Hedges, Starring: Colin Palangio, Brian Foley, Harrison Cruikshank, Laura Welch, Joel Eastwood, and Emily Lamond. Directed by Jenna Elzein, Produced by Alana Easto and Chelsea Calder. Colin Palangio received an award for his acting and set/props and was dubbed master of physical comedy.

Clubs

Reach for the Top

In the 2003-2004 school year, Westmount's senior Reach for the Top finished second in the regional competition, advancing them to the provincial level, where they placed 5th in the preliminary tournament and 8th in the televised tournament. The team was coached by librarian Stephen Sawford and English teacher Gregory Clark. Jay Misuk (captain), Adam Lohonyai, Dan Lawlor, Ray Lawlor, Stephen McPherson and Liam Sawford comprised the 2003-2004 team. The following year, under the same coaching, Jay Misuk, Adam Lohonyai and Dan Lawlor returned to join new members Charlie Henderson, Rob Digi and Weiming Song. The 2004-2005 team failed to qualify for the provincial tournament.

The 2006-2007 Senior Reach Team consisted of Cayle Lackten, Ben DiFrancesco, Saswat Mohanty, Alexandra Mayhew, Joel Eastwood, Ray Flores, and Faraz Lalji. The Intermediate Reach Team was coached by Mr. Eckart. The team consists of Nicole Nicolson, Allison Chewter, Tristan DiFrancesco, Mark Feather, Elyse Airth, Bailey Duff and Phil Crusto.

The regular School Reach season runs from September until April.

Environmental Club

Westmount received a small grant for 2004-2005 from the Hamilton Community Foundation's "Protecting Our Environment Together: Youth Focus" grants for their "Greening of Westmount" project. Currently, the club goes around the school on a weekly basis to the empty recycling bins in the school. Other projects include reducing the amount of time cars spend idling outside the school during drop-off and pick-up times, planting more trees around the school, and advocating for a new bike rack.

The Environmental Club is currently run by Chris Minnick.

Programming Team

Westmount sends two programming teams annually to compete in the ECOO programming contest against teams from various schools across the board. In the 2006-07 year, the two teams finished first and second in the local Boardwide programming contest, advancing them to regionals. From there, the "A" team finished a respectable 15th out of 29 teams, while the "B" team repeated their performance from the previous year, finishing 4th. The "B" then advanced to the provincial competition where they came 13th.

Positive Space

Westmount's Positive Space initiative begins with the premise that students have a right to an education which is free of discrimination and harassment of any kind, including differences which may be attributed to intersections of identity, including but not limited to sexual orientation, gender, race, class, and religion.

It also recognizes that both staff and students require information and resources to help create a school environment in which all feel safe. Part of its objective is to eliminate barriers that impede a student’s success because of his/her identity, and to provide staff with the tools they require to be responsive to these barriers in both public and private school spaces.

Positive Space is a student-lead initiative supervised by Susan Corrigan.

Pawprints

Although Pawprints went on hiatus from late 2006 until 2007, students Tristan DiFrancesco and Mariam Ghaddar began preparatory meetings in early November 2007 for the first of the renewed paper's issues.

While The Wire remained firmly "alternative" in its absence, Pawprints (as a collective of involved students) has agreed to take on its previous role as the "mainstream" paper, filled with informative, objective, and unbiased articles and topics addressed on a monthly basis.

Previously competitors, The Wire and Pawprints have developed a complementary relationship, providing students with a range of views and informative articles.

The inaugural issue of Pawprints was released December 19, 2007, and featured a hand-drawn holiday cover, as well as many familiar types of articles like those seen in older issues.

The Westmount Wire

The Westmount Wire is the school's "alternative" newspaper, with Pawprints being the main newspaper, coming back in the 2007-08 year after folding in 2006.The title "alternative" was used even in the absence of Pawprints. The covers always feature a target, with only the colours changing from month to month. Other consistent stylistic elements include a lack of capitals in article titles, gratuitous quotations, and simplistic, "mod" graphics. Frequently occurring articles include "The Wire Salutes...", "Teh Rox and Teh Sux", and "6 Degrees of Separation" with several other commonly occurring themes. The appearance of the terms "new wave" and "alternative" at seemingly random intervals within the writings of the editors. The new editor for '07 through to '09 is Nicole Nicolson. The wire is released monthly, and is priced at fifty cents. One of the wire's numerous attractions is that there are no meetings. This is felt by all to not only be extremely convenient, but extremely "new wave" as well.

ocial Justice Club

Westmount's Social Justice is an association of students from all grades committed to bringing attention to and working to resolve social justice issues including (but not limited to) the environment, anti-war protesting, international genocide and globalization/corporatism. They are working on several new issues, including a coffee house on November 30 in the auditorium, featuring performances by students on social justice issues, and free refreshments.

DDR Club (Dance Dance Revolution Club)

The Dance Dance Revolution Club, created and lead by student Tony Bui, is a group of several students who wish to play the popular games Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova and the proceeding series of games. This club started during the winter of 2007/2008. Once a week, students meet up in a room in the school to play this game each lunch hour, continuing from the start to the end of lunch hour, less a few minutes at beginning and end. Currently a limited amount of students have been allowed to play because of equipment issues, but has had several very experienced players. There has not been a restriction from the students from each grade. Currently there is no issue on students walking in and out in the club while it is on, or just coming to watch other players "dance".

RIOT (Revolution Informed On Tobacco)

Westmount's teen tobacco group formed 2006. RIOT is based on raising awareness of the Big tobacco industry targeting teens. RIOT has done presentations to elementary schools for grade 7/8 health classes. Presentations have been held each year in high populated areas of the school. RIOT has won 2006 Most Resourceful group at the Annual Teen Tobacco Summit held by HCAAT(Hamilton Crew for Action Against Tobacco) and the Hamilton Health Department. RIOT had a bake sale on December 5, 2007 to raise money for charity.

All club were approved by the Westmount student council, as well as school principal, Mrs. Bowman.

Events

tay-Awake-A-Thon

One of the charitable events Westmount staff and students hold is the yearly Stay-awake-a-thon. Prior to the event, participating students are asked to collect pledges for the McMaster Children's Hospital, with a minimum pledge total of 40 CAD in order to participate. The event officially takes place after classes for the day have finished, where students remain in the school throughout the night until the following day at 07:00 - traditionally this begins after classes on a Friday afternoon and ends on a Saturday morning. During this time, teacher-supervisors come in and rotate shifts, monitoring the various areas open to the students during the night. Also, students are asked to bring one food item for the potluck dinner served during the evening. After everyone has eaten dinner, a variety of activities are available for the students to participate in, including games, karaoke, dances, organized and pick-up sports, movies, internet browsing, and anything else the students can think of, within reason. Through this event, Westmount has been able to donate thousands of dollars towards the local children's hospital.

Terry Fox Run

Westmount holds an annual Terry Fox run in late September of each year in the surrounding park. Students are encouraged to bring $2 each. The event takes one period. From 2004-2006, Westmount raised over $8,000.

ocial Events

The Westmount Social Committee hosts the Halloween and Spring dance every year along with Semi-Formal and Prom. Each event is unique and done dfferently every year (as there is a new social committee). Each event hosts between 250 and 325 people and are worth going to.

Issues

Religious Groups at Westmount

Westmount courted controversy when, in 2004, it banned a Christian club formed by students at the school. The school, along with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, cited the Ontario Education Act, which they interpreted as prohibiting religious activities during school hours. This included lunch time, when the group met. Other schools within the same board allowed for inclusion of various religious minorities, yet Westmount's administration was persistent with its stance. Parents of the students threatened to sue the school for violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Meanwhile Muslim students, who were also forced to disband, reverted to board level talks to resolve the issue. The school attempted to compromise and, after various meetings held between board officials and community representatives, the conflict was resolved. Both Muslim and Christian groups continue to have their religious programs at Westmount.

Prominent Alumni

*Paul Chafe, author/soldier
*Tom Jackson, city councillor
*Robyn Pauhl, musician
*Patrick McKenna, actor
*Haydain Neale, musician
*Danny Sharp, former professional golfer

Notes

References

ources

*Westmount Secondary School (2004). [http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/westmount/beliefs_2.htm Westmount's Pace Belief Statement] . Retrieved June 30, 2005.
*Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. [http://calendar.tetraplex.com/section7-18.html Westmount Secondary School's Areas of Excellence] . Retrieved June 30, 2005.
*Hamilton Community Foundation. [http://www.hcf.on.ca/pages/special/Yac/yacgrantmaking/04_05_POET_YAC_grants.htm Protecting Our Environment Together (POET): Youth Focus 2004-2005 Grants] . Retrieved June 30, 2005.
*Fitzgerald, Tony: " [http://webserver.hwdsb.on.ca/about_us/newsroom/v_2_0_1/news_detail.aspx?newsid=393 Westmount students making waves] ", "The Hamilton Spectator", (23 February 2005)
*" [http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/about_us/newsroom/v_2_0_1/news_detail.aspx?newsid=425 Westmount off to OFSAA for curling championships] ", "The Hamilton Spectator", (21 March 2005)
*Wang, Tian: " [http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/about_us/newsroom/v_2_0_1/news_detail.aspx?newsid=437 Self-Pacing at Westmount] ", "The Hamilton Spectator", (5 April 2005)
*Eastwood, Joel:" [http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1137451825882&call_pageid=1123495616313&col=1123495616343 The Spirit of Westmount] ", "The Hamilton Spectator", (17 January 2006)

External links

* [http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/westmount/ Westmount Secondary School]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39+Montcalm+Drive+Hamilton,+Ontario+L9C+4B1&spn=0.005891,0.010478&t=k&hl=en Google Satellite photo]
* [http://www.thespec.com/go/thepulse/school/Westmount/The Pulse]