Walking the halls of New Westminster Secondary School the evening of Dec. 8, you’d never know there was a party going on. The Pearson wing was eerily quiet save for the faint sound of Christmas tunes that grew louder as you approached room 281. Outside the classroom, a crowd of students gathered hoping to catch a glimpse of the magic inside.
Making students wait outside is all part of the fun of SIGMA’s annual Christmas dinner, Nolan Bellerose told the Record.
“The Christmas party here at SIGMA is pretty special because the teachers put a lot of effort into the Christmas dinner,” he said.
Bellerose is in Grade 12. He’s about to graduate (a semester early) after two years in the alternate program. Once he does, he’ll work for a few months before college starts next September where he’ll train as a youth care worker.
Bellerose, like others in the program, ended up in SIGMA because things weren’t working out in the mainstream system.
He grew up surrounded by drug and alcohol abuse, and was going through some hard times before SIGMA, he said. Since then, however, he’s managed to get his marks up and joined the Hyacks football team.
Last week’s Christmas dinner was the second Bellerose attended.
The dinner, now in its 16th year, is an important event for both staff and students. Hosted by SIGMA teachers and support staff, the annual feast is sometimes the only holiday meal some of the students get to enjoy, Sarah Weatherby, SIGMA’s youth care worker, told the Record.
The purpose of the dinner is to create community, she said.
“(It’s) to show how much we like working with them,” Weatherby added. “It’s also to make sure all students are being recognized and are having dinner.”
In the days leading up to the dinner, staff hand out surveys asking students what they’d like for Christmas that year. Gift bags are purchased and teachers and staff go about filling them with things the kids asked for, plus a few other goodies. It’s all part of the experience, Weatherby said.
Contrary to what most people think, SIGMA isn’t just a program for misbehaving teenagers (although they’re certainly mixed in amongst the group). It’s an alternative program run out of New Westminster Secondary School that offers Grade 10 to 12 students a flexible learning environment aimed at helping them succeed and, ultimately, graduate.
Many of the students in SIGMA are gifted, some exceptionally so. Others have been referred there because of problems in the mainstream program. Like regular high school, SIGMA runs on a semester schedule, with four courses per semester including electives, explained Weatherby.
So what’s different? Well, SIGMA students start school at 10 a.m. and work at their own pace. They get more individualized help from teachers thanks to smaller class sizes (there are usually about 15 to 20 students in a SIGMA class), and at SIGMA, there is no such thing as failing.
Because students don’t work at the same pace as their counterparts in the regular stream, they aren’t penalized if they don’t complete a course by the end of the semester. That means a student who is about 70 per cent finished his or her math 12 course would complete the remaining 30 per cent the following semester, Weatherby said.
“It’s about setting the students up for success,” she added.
Grade 12 student Joshua Kocsar is just one of the success stories.
The former homelearner had fallen behind in some courses, so in Grade 10, after eight years of at-home learning, he enrolled in SIGMA. He admits there were some gaps in his education, but those gaps were soon filled with help from SIGMA teachers, he said.
“I don’t really need that help anymore,” he said, “(but) I still appreciate it though, because I move at a much faster pace.”
For Kocsar, the Christmas dinner is something very special.
“I think it’s important to get everyone here and bond as a school instead of being all over the place doing your own individual thing,” he said. “We don’t really have that time to really be a school.”
Ashlan Koronko couldn’t agree more.
The Grade 12 student was going through “a rough patch” a few years ago and got referred to the New Westminster school district’s junior alternate program – RCAP – when she was in Grade 9.
“Because the classes are obviously smaller, you have more one-on-one with the teachers, and I feel like all the teachers try to make a close relationship with everyone,” she told the Record.
This close relationship was something Koronko felt was lacking in the mainstream system, and it was something she needed at the time.
“I feel like when you’re in regular school, the teachers … don’t take the time to connect with you the way that teachers in alternates do; it’s more so like a family,” she said.
Thanks to generous donations from Buy Low Foods and Key West Ford, the SIGMA family gets to sit down to a full turkey dinner complete with presents and door prizes (including two pairs of Canucks tickets).
Without the community’s support and the hard work of teachers and staff, the dinner wouldn’t be as successful as it is, Weatherby said.
And the students seem to agree.
“I think the teachers here go above and beyond to do this for us. I think we’re really spoiled, to be honest,” Kocsar said.
