Goldie Ghamari - April 21, 2022


MPP Ghamari Announces Second Public Elementary School in Findlay Creek

Topics
retirement announcement
Hosted by
Goldie Ghamari
Mentioned
Vimy Ridge Ahmed Fawal Principal Sevigny Kavita Adwani Grace McIntosh MPP Gamari Karen Ostapichuk Finley Creek Principal Stébigné Anthony Picomari Kavita Ajwani Dania Rafai Finney Ridge Jika Mari Carleton Lecce
MPP Ghamari, Minister MacLeod & Minister Cho announce $170,000 investment for seniors in Ottawa Freedom Rally for Iran： Ottawa - Saturday October 1, 2022

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

152.67

Word count

2,588

Sentence count

85


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with the Principal of Vimy Ridge Public School, Cheryl Sevigny, who is stepping down after 34 years of dedicated service at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. Ms. Sévigné and MPP Candice Gamari, who has served as Minister of Education for the District of Carleton since 2018, join Ms. Sevigney to honour her retirement and make an announcement about two brand new elementary schools being built in the area.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Good morning everyone. My name is Cheryl Sevigny and I'm proud to be the principal here at Vimy Ridge Public School.
00:00:06.000 I would like to call on grade 7 student Grace McIntosh to do our land acknowledgement.
00:00:12.000 This is a special land acknowledgement. It's specific to Vimy Ridge School and it was written by Grace.
00:00:23.000 We acknowledge that we are gathered here today on the traditional and unsealed land of the Algonquin and Anishinaabe people
00:00:29.000 who have lived and thrived on this ancestral land since the beginning itself.
00:00:33.020 As we gather here to learn, we must recognize and appreciate the teachings of the Algalchon and Hussabwe people.
00:00:38.040 They tell us to be kind, not only to each other, but to the land itself.
00:00:41.340 Many of our modern ways of life have evolved from the traditional methods of the Indigenous Peoples.
00:00:46.080 Finley Creek is situated on the South Asian River watershed.
00:00:48.740 This is an important natural ecosystem that must be protected through ongoing dialogue with Indigenous Peoples.
00:00:53.400 Another important lesson of Canada's First Peoples is that no matter how different someone is, instead of oppressing said differences, we should celebrate them.
00:01:00.400 Diversity is what makes our country special and we are extremely fortunate to be part of a school that celebrates so many diverse cultures.
00:01:12.400 Thank you, Grace. I would now like to call on MPP Gamari to come and speak.
00:01:19.400 Well, thank you very much, Principal Sévigné, for the introduction, and before I forget,
00:01:33.860 I would first like to, if I can find it, a little birdie told me that Principal Sévigné
00:01:43.000 is retiring this year so i just wanted to provide you with a certificate of appreciation for your
00:01:51.560 retirement and it says congratulations on the occasion of your retirement as mvp for carlton
00:01:57.400 and on behalf of the province of ontario i'm pleased to extend my congratulations and best
00:02:02.120 wishes to you on your retirement on june 30th 2022. your 34 years of dedicated service at the
00:02:08.840 Ottawa Carleton District School Board have earned you the respect and gratitude of your colleagues
00:02:13.240 and extended community. Retirement is a special time and I hope you enjoy the opportunity to
00:02:18.120 adjust your focus on priorities as you move into this newest phase of your life. Thank you so much,
00:02:23.640 that's very very kind of you. Thank you. I'd also like to recognize Mimi Ridge Parent Council
00:02:32.360 co-chairs, Ms. Kavita Adwani and Mr. Ahmed Fawal, as well as his lovely better half,
00:02:38.680 Dania Rafai, who's standing back there. I don't have any sorts of tickets for you two though,
00:02:43.400 so I apologize. So I'm very excited, very, very thrilled actually to be here today to make this
00:02:53.640 announcement. And as you saw it while we did the tour of Vimy Ridge Public Elementary School,
00:03:00.680 the school was built in 2017 and since then its capacity has pretty much doubled.
00:03:08.360 There are 18 portables outside right now full of students with at least five more slated to
00:03:14.280 be brought in by next year. I was first made aware of the issue of overcrowding at Vimy Ridge
00:03:21.000 Public Elementary School back in October of 2021 when Ms. Kavita Ajwani as well as Principal
00:03:27.000 Sevigny reached out to me and we had a meeting on zoom and it was at that time that I realized
00:03:33.480 something had to be done and we had to make a difference in this community because every child
00:03:40.200 deserves to learn in a modern updated safe classroom indoors inside of a school
00:03:49.720 public education has always been a big priority of mine it's something that I ran on four years ago
00:03:54.200 and four years ago before getting elected i had no idea how to build a school but that never
00:03:59.720 stopped me and since getting elected uh i've managed to build the following schools in four
00:04:06.840 years in 2018 we secured funding for sitsville public high school 48 million dollars in 2020
00:04:13.720 i secured funding for fernbank public elementary school in stitzville 22 million dollars again in
00:04:19.560 2020 i helped secure funding for the first ever public high school in riverside south
00:04:25.000 in 2021 i secured funding for fernbank catholic elementary school in stitzville
00:04:30.920 fernbank french public elementary school in stitzville in 2022 i secured funding to do an
00:04:37.800 expansion of paul de marie french catholic high school and to build the first ever catholic
00:04:44.120 Elementary School in Finlay Creek. The total so far has been seven schools, 5,357 pupil places,
00:04:53.160 205 licensed child care spaces, and $164 million in funding in Carleton alone. However,
00:05:03.160 that's not the only announcement that I'm here to make today. In fact, I'm here to announce
00:05:08.200 two brand new schools the first school is the riverside south catholic elementary school
00:05:16.040 507 pupil places two child care rooms 39 child care spaces that's licensed child care spaces
00:05:24.600 for a total of 15 million dollars and the one that i'm very excited to share with everyone
00:05:31.880 it's something that we have worked countless and countless of hours on to get it done.
00:05:38.920 We are building a second public elementary school right here in Findlay Creek for a total student
00:05:46.600 population size of 674, two licensed child care rooms, 39 licensed child care spaces for a total
00:05:55.000 of 19 million dollars in funding. Kavita and Ahmed, our hours of hard work have paid off.
00:06:10.360 The meetings, the WhatsApp group chats, the three-hour meeting we had, you know, the preparation
00:06:18.840 for the delegations that you made, the petition, the petition that's on my website which was
00:06:24.600 urging the carl ottawa carlton district school board to make finley creek a priority and not
00:06:30.680 just the priority the top priority because i promised the people of finley creek and i promised
00:06:36.040 parents like ahmed and kavita that if we can get finley creek as a number one priority
00:06:43.400 i will fight for the people of finley creek and i will do everything within my power
00:06:47.480 to get this school built and i think this is the fastest school i've ever worked on to getting
00:06:53.240 belt so i don't think i can ever do it again but with that it's my pleasure to introduce two very
00:06:58.920 special people who are fantastic role models great community members to come up
00:07:04.040 and speak about their involvement in this project kubita ajwani and ahmed fawal
00:07:09.320 Thank you and welcome to Vimy Ridge Public School. It is an honor to have you here with
00:07:23.480 us to share this exciting news with the Finley Creek community. My name is Kavita Adwani,
00:07:28.520 I have three children, two of whom currently attend Vimy Ridge in grade four and junior
00:07:33.640 kindergarten. I'm co-chair on parent council and have been lead on the safety committee for the
00:07:38.600 last three years. I'm also a community member who's been watching a fast-growing community
00:07:45.480 with only one school almost at twice its capacity and bursting at the seams.
00:07:51.400 Over the last few years I've been working with Principal Sevigny and other officials
00:07:56.600 to address the congestion and traffic issues that are mainly caused by the increasing number
00:08:00.760 of enrolments at our school. In trying to find other solutions I reached out to
00:08:06.920 Anthony Picomari in October of 2021 with the simple question of how do we go about getting
00:08:12.600 another school. At that time it was purely out of curiosity and of course it was no secret that
00:08:19.320 the Catholic Board has a site for a future school literally next door to Vimy Ridge
00:08:25.000 which would have brought on a whole new level of congestion. Within a few weeks after that there
00:08:31.480 was media news of our grade seven and eight students moving uh to another school in a in
00:08:37.560 the community excuse me in the neighboring community of riverside south um again this
00:08:45.400 came as a shock to everyone although i was glad that the over capacity or overcrowding was finally
00:08:51.640 publicly being acknowledged i wasn't happy about the uh the option or moving them
00:08:57.640 This would have affected our kids soon enough, and I had to do something. I couldn't stay quiet
00:09:05.240 anymore. I reached out to Ahmed, because of course it's a bigger issue to tackle for one person,
00:09:12.840 and I didn't realize that I was going to become so passionate about
00:09:17.800 acquiring a second school. Ahmed and I, we pulled together, and we've spent countless hours
00:09:25.640 um communicating, planning, petitioning with government officials, board trustees and other
00:09:31.400 parents. I do want to take a minute though and acknowledge the tremendous support we got from
00:09:37.880 the community, from the other parents who helped us with different tasks and especially our own
00:09:43.400 families, my kids and Ahmed's better half, Dania, for allowing us the time to be able to get this
00:09:52.200 far. We are so proud to announce that Findlay Creek has been awarded the funding to build a
00:09:58.280 second public school at Kelly Farm Drive and McKenna Road. A second victory for this team
00:10:04.760 after Findlay Creek was ranked from number four to number one on the capital priorities list
00:10:10.540 in February 2022. There's still a lot of work to be done and we are really looking forward to
00:10:17.260 working with the school board and the City of Ottawa to break ground as soon
00:10:21.540 as possible. We believe in making a meaningful change in our community to
00:10:27.220 allow for positive growth and foremost the safety of all our children. Thank you
00:10:33.280 again and Pika Mari for all your support and congratulations Finley Creek!
00:10:39.300 so uh good morning everyone um it's an honor to be here today with mpp kamari and to be part of
00:10:50.340 the announcement for the capital funding for the second ottawa carleton district school board
00:10:54.740 elementary school in finley creek so my name is ahmed fawal i am an active member of the beverage
00:11:00.020 community and i'm currently co-chair with kabita ajwani on the school council for bimuridge
00:11:05.540 I can still remember in 2016 November when I was part of the groundbreaking ceremony for Vimy Ridge and both my kids have attended Vimy Ridge ever since it opened. They're both in grade 3 and 4 this year. They're out in portables and they'll probably be out in portables again next year.
00:11:24.080 It's not an ideal situation. Like we saw earlier, there's no running water, there's no easy access to washrooms, and the schoolyard's been basically consumed by all the portables.
00:11:36.080 We're currently the largest Ottawa Carleton District School Board school, and we're only growing.
00:11:42.080 already have 18 portables on site there's at least five more coming next year um and the 22 or sorry
00:11:50.000 the 22-23 school year and in the 23-24 school year the school is projected to be at over 200
00:11:56.560 capacity so that means half the students are actually going to be outside of the school to
00:12:00.880 get their education so after Kavita reached out to me in late 2021 and being an equally concerned
00:12:07.440 parents we teamed up to advocate for the students and the community um and some of the key things
00:12:12.160 that we did were you know we prepared live delegate speeches that were presented at the
00:12:16.480 december 7th 2021 and the february 22nd 2022 uh board meetings for the ottawa carlton district
00:12:22.320 school board um you know we had multiple multiple meetings with nvp gamari you know zoom google meets
00:12:30.560 down yeah town hall meetings um whatsapp meetings um you know she's helped us and we sought her
00:12:36.080 advice throughout the entire time. We wrote multiple letters to the board and trustees
00:12:40.240 explaining the urgency of our situation. We took part in multiple working groups with
00:12:45.200 Karen Ostapichuk, Manager of Planning at the Ottawa Carleton District School Board,
00:12:50.080 to try and address the overcrowding issue here at Vinny Ridge. And we also formed the petition
00:12:57.200 expressing the need for the second Ottawa Carleton Elementary School here in Vinny Creek.
00:13:01.120 So today it is with great excitement that, you know, to know that our efforts have paid off and I'd like to start by thanking all the people of the community who signed and helped accumulate all the signatures that we needed for our petition and voiced and raised awareness for this need.
00:13:18.120 Karen Ostapachuk from the Ottawa Carlton District School Board who was here and
00:13:24.060 supported us throughout the entire process and for her recommendation of
00:13:29.120 making Finley Creek the number one priority on the latest capital submission
00:13:32.840 and we do look forward to working with her on the construction of the second
00:13:37.020 elementary school here in Finley Creek. The Ottawa Carlton District School Board
00:13:41.520 trustees who voted in favor of Karen's recommendation to put Finley Creek as
00:13:46.220 top priority. And of course, MPP Gamari for all her support, all her efforts, and for pushing to
00:13:53.140 make Finley Creek, or for pushing to make to get Finley Creek the funding that we needed for the
00:13:59.980 new school. And of course, Minister Lecce for approving those funds to help us build the school
00:14:05.460 that's urgently needed. And yes, my beautiful wife who's recording me right now. Thank you so much.
00:14:16.220 I think I'd now like to call upon Principal Stébigné to say a few words, especially
00:14:23.760 with this being her last year, I'm sure this is a great final accomplishment for her as
00:14:29.460 well because I know she's been working very hard on this.
00:14:35.000 Thank you everyone.
00:14:36.000 This is really exciting news and I have to tell you that it shows what teamwork can do
00:14:43.780 and I have been very fortunate to work
00:14:46.980 in the Finley Creek community
00:14:48.500 and with our Vimy Ridge public school community.
00:14:52.060 When Vimy Ridge was first built,
00:14:55.140 our school board recognized that we were going to need
00:14:58.060 two schools in Finley Creek
00:15:00.440 just to service all of our students.
00:15:03.120 And now that that has come to reality,
00:15:07.200 I am so, so grateful.
00:15:09.840 I have two of the best chairs on my school council.
00:15:15.240 So a huge thank you to Ahmed and to Vida and to my entire parent community who has worked really hard on this.
00:15:24.760 Special thanks to the Ontario government and to MPP Gamari who has done incredible work for us
00:15:32.320 and it has really been a pleasure working together.
00:15:36.320 So thank you all very much.
00:15:38.340 Thank you for the kind words, Principal Sevigny.
00:15:43.340 So with that, you know, I'm very, very excited.
00:15:47.340 I'm thrilled by this announcement.
00:15:49.340 This goes back to our government's commitment to investing in education, investing in students,
00:15:55.340 investing in the future of Ontario and the future of people living in communities like Finley Creek and elsewhere.
00:16:04.340 you know this is something again this is my eighth and ninth school that I'm
00:16:09.260 announcing since getting elected this goes to our priorities our commitments
00:16:13.460 we're here to build Ontario we're here to get the job done and we'll continue
00:16:17.960 to get the job done and now that the funding has been approved the ball is in
00:16:23.360 the court of the school board trustees and now that the funding has been
00:16:30.280 approved the balls in the court of the school board trustees and the city of
00:16:33.680 ottawa to get the school built as fast as possible so that we can make sure that all
00:16:38.640 children in finley clique are able to learn in a classroom thank you very much and that concludes
00:16:44.160 the announcement if there are any questions uh maybe i'll just do some one-on-ones uh ideally
00:16:49.680 with the parents and maybe you guys as well just in a second if that's okay absolutely you're okay
00:16:53.120 for five minutes? Everyone's all right for a couple minutes? Awesome.