My experience with the school, we have very supportive staff that work with students (EA team is fantastic and very supportive of each other)
Custodians and secretaries are very welcoming and extremely helpful when dealing with the school.
There is a lot of behaviours and the team tries to manage them the best they can, but there’s no discipline. I’ve seen way too many staff being injured by students they are supporting and lots of destruction of property from these students. Custodians work their behinds off and constantly try to clean the school as good as possible but with these behaviours and no consequences being given, sometimes school is in disrepair.

On a daily basis staff are subjected to verbal and physical abuse from the students. This means special needs students and non special needs students. If your child attends this school they have seen staff get hit, be cursed at and be treated with utrer disrespect.The staff feel stressed and like there is nothing they can do about it. We do not feel supported by administration or the board. The board needs to provide more support staff. The current support staff are being asked to watch multiple special needs students at a time or are being pulled to deal with an emergency situation in another area of the school. This is putting the staff and students in unsafe positions.

I have to say I’ve never experienced such a staff low as in the past two years working in this school environment. It doesn’t seem anybody walking the halls is happy (with management). Although staff is very supportive to each other, I see EAs working hard every day to support their students with shortage of staff and high level of students that need support. Support is taken away from some students and given to others & students are clustered in areas because of shortages. Overall, staff morale is very very low. Us teachers, and EAS are struggling, not getting support that is needed in the classrooms resulting in burnout! We can all pretend to a certain point , but this is actually ridiculous!

I am an educational assistant. I work in a small class with special needs students. I am hit/kicked on a regular basis. I’ve needed to leave work to see a doctor. Thankfully I’ve never been off long term, yet. We are constantly short staffed. We sometimes have to evacuate our class due to a violent student. Our admin are great and do their best to support us. These students need more help, more support. We are failing these students because our hands are tied by the board and the government. Students and staff should not have to be fearful to go to school/work.

St. Thomas Aquinas is a berg busy and challenging school, but having worked there a few years and most recently I am very satisfied with the wonderful staff and the support from administration (Plommer and Kay) this year.
Like any school there will always be challenges however, the staff truly cares about the students that they work with and work hard to make sure that the students needs are met every day.
This school may not be for everyone, but it is a welcoming community and worth spending time working here to see what a great school it is.

This school used to be fantastic! The moral was high, the kids were happy and the support was there. Now St.Pat’s is so low on moral, it is a chore not a pleasure to go to work. I have worked in many schools in this board and I have to say this school has gone so far down the tubes I don’t know if it can ever come back to what it used to be. The administrative staff are harsh and unsupportive, making it difficult to find support when there is a problem. The lack of support in the classrooms for children with special needs is ongoing and only getting worse. It feels very alone and segregated as a staff, with a staff turnover rate that demonstrates the lack of passion teachers have when working there. I think if the administration was moved around and new people were to come into these roles, maybe the staff moral would begin to turn around.