With just days to go until the start of the new school year, two Catholic school boards find themselves heading into a year of anxiety as Ontario’s Ministry of Education has placed them under provincial supervision.

Yet while things may be a little uncertain for the Toronto and Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Boards, two of four Ontario boards placed under provincial supervision for financial discretions, parents can be assured that upon their return to class students can expect what they have come to expect every year: a school system prepared to provide the faith-based education they, and thousands of their predecessors over the decades, have always received. 

OECTA, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, is anticipating some concern among its members to start the school year, but president René Jansen in de Wal has made assurances that students will not feel these concerns.

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“Teachers are already preparing their curriculum materials in classrooms as per normal, and it's always great to feel the excitement. Getting to meet the kids again, that's the part that fills teachers' hearts. For any anxiety, they always have this excitement about the new year as well,” he told the Register’s Luke Mandato. “There’s the reality of that supervision, but it doesn't have a direct impact, as our teachers are working mostly with their colleagues in the departments in their schools.  Either way, we are all looking forward to getting to the first day of school and getting everything in place.” 

And that’s what is expected, and has indeed been the case, well, forever, in the Catholic education system, as so many of us can attest. It’s one of the reasons that, also just days before the return of the school year, as is an annual tradition in The Catholic Register, we celebrate the beauty that is Catholic education.

Each year it is one of our special features that is a pleasure to bring to our readers, those who already know all about what a Catholic education, provided by a Catholic school board, has meant to them and their lives, and those who are still just beginning to understand this.

To put it succinctly, as Aaron Skretting tells the Register’s Quinton Amundson, “There’s something different here.”

In the Alberta school division where Skretting is director of Religious Education, student enrolment is more than 50-per-cent non-Catholic. These large numbers of non-Catholics are attracted, he said, by the Catholic system’s commitment to holistic development.

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“The ability to knit the intellectual, the spiritual, the academic and the athletic, all those facets that make up the full and integral human. I think we’re able to talk about that in a way that might be different than our secular counterparts.”

Talk to people that experienced both Catholic schools and the secular public system and they know exactly of what Skretting speaks.

So yes, we are here to praise all that is Catholic education, in these following pages and throughout the year in our coverage of our school systems.

Look no further than Iain So and Julia Friesen, two of the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s Top Scholars for the 2024-25 school year, for why we do so. Both achieved 99.33-per-cent averages in the final years of study and will seek to continue that excellence as they embark on their post-secondary education paths. No doubt, it is God-given ability that helped them along the way, families as well, but one thing both say is their path was made easier through caring, dedicated Catholic teachers.

It may seem an odd time to be forthcoming with this praise, some will say. Beyond Toronto and Dufferin-Peel, financial scandals have struck other boards as well. But what we can be assured of is that these punishments are not attacks on Catholic education in Ontario. 

And every once in awhile, too often in fact, the call comes for a cessation to the Catholic school system with claims that one public system is enough of a burden for taxpayers to bear. Thankfully, three provinces and one territory nationwide don’t agree. Along with Ontario, Catholic schools in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories are publicly funded. 

Just what is it about Catholic education that is so attractive — to Catholics and non-Catholics alike? Well, for many, it is the grounding in faith. All that Catholic schools do lead back to the greatest teacher of all time, Our Lord Jesus Christ. The home-school-parish connection only broadens this.

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And the Catholic values that are embedded in our children cannot be underestimated. The Lord teaches us to do unto your neighbour as you would have them do to you. It is not only expected in Catholic education, it is practised daily. It may be subtle, and kids may not at first understand this, but make no mistake, it is one of our Catholic schools greatest feats. 

So, as our schools fill up again for another year of passing on knowledge and faith to our youngsters, take the time to remember those who make it possible and to praise an education system that will always ground itself in our Lord.