Kwayaciiwin Education Resource Centre
Meet the Team
About Amanda
Amanda coordinates the development and management of the school success planning team portion of the FNSSP. This includes program and service development; planning, coordination and management of program and service delivery, which includes communications, community liaison, monitoring and reporting.
Most specifically, she works with the FNSSP team of educational consultants to organize, coordinate and facilitate support to schools and communities, establish proposals and work plans, and ensure that data and results collected from communities is collated and analyzed to determine impact on student success.
Contact Amanda:
807-737-7373 ext. 15
About Melissa
After graduating from the Laurier and Nipissing concurrent education program, Melissa worked in variety of classroom settings as an occasional teacher in southern Ontario. In 2012, she began working in northwestern Ontario as the Special Education Resource Teacher in Cat Lake. As the Early Literacy Coach for the First Nation Student Success Program, her role is to work with primary educators in the district to develop effective strategies for meeting language development needs.
Contact Melissa:
807-737-7373 ext. 29
About Bronwyn
Bronwyn was born and raised in the Ottawa Valley and still feels very new to Northwest Ontario after being here for a year. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics at Trent University and her Bachelor of Education from Queen's University.
Bronwyn's teaching experience includes working with students identified with Mild Intellectual Disabilities, teaching in a youth correctional facility and teaching math a various levels in rural Ontario.
She is a math enthusiast, an avid reader, and a passionate youth advocate, who is committed to work and learn from an anti-oppressive framework.
Contact Bronwyn:
807-737-7373 ext. 27
About Brooke
Brooke was born and raised in Northwestern Ontario and attended Lakehead University. While at Lakehead, she obtained an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English.
Moving to Western Canada, for a while, she attended the University of British Columbia where she earned her Bachelor of Education degree.
Brooke’s teaching experience comes from working in small rural schools in British Columbia’s West Kootenays, and more recently Rocky View School Division in Alberta. During her time in the classroom, Brooke mostly taught English Language Arts to grades 6-12.
As the Literacy Coach at KERC, Brooke’s responsibilities will be to provide expert advice and in-school support to teachers and administrators on strategies to improve the literacy of their students.
Contact Brooke:
807-737-7373 ext. 44
About Charles
Charles provides support to Education Directors and Principals for the development of their locally designed annual FNSSP proposals and completion of FNSSP reporting requirements. Charles also provides support for school reviews and development of school policies.
Contact Charles:
807-737-7373 ext. 11
About Monika
Monika Orzechowska is KERC’s Technology and Performance Measurement Lead. After many years living, learning and working with Inuit and Cree Communities she moved to Sioux Lookout in 1990 and joined the Kwayaciiwin team in 2012.
Monika researches and assesses technological resources to find ones that could be useful for schools in the Sioux Lookout District. Her current focus is on supporting a number of Chromebook Pilot projects and assisting district teachers in exploring the engagement and learning power of Google Apps For Education in their classrooms. Monika also provides support for teachers in areas of experiential and “tradigital” education – which involves combining the best of traditional teaching tools and practices with the best of digital ones. She is particularly interested in the many forms of Digital Story Telling as an educational tool that gives a voice to students.Monika provides in-house technical support, maintains the website and is KERC’s administrator for Dadavan Outcomes Student Information System and provides support to local data administrators, teachers and school leadership in the use of Dadavan for the collection and analysis of data relating to student achievement (e.g. attendance, assessments and report cards). Monika coordinates the First Nation Student Nutrition Program that KERC recently succeeded in getting funding for in 12 communities and 18 project sites.
Contact Monika:
807-737-7373 ext. 32
About Lesley
Lesley is responsible for coordinating, developing, and managing the student learning assessment for the KERC FNSSP program.
A District-Wide Assessment system is in place to monitor and measure the achievement of the students in all the classrooms with in KERC. The assessments are standardized and given to the students individually by KERC staff, with interpretation and comparison by Lesley. The norms have been calibrated using many schools from Northern Canada and some from the USA.
The information gathered provides insight into the progress and growth of students. Recommendations packages are provided to schools in order to enhance further growth with efforts made to meet age-grade standards.
Graphs and at/above grade level charts are created for the purpose of sharing with Chief and Council, Administration, Staff, and School Boards: demonstrating growth is occurring.
Each community and school has an individual package based on his or her own results with recommendations that are reachable to promote maximum growth.
Training in some assessment programs is currently in progress for community personnel.
Feel free to contact Lesley if further information is required.
Contact Lesley:
807-737-7373 ext. 31
Chris is a Registered Social Service Worker, with 5 years of experience working in First Nations communities.
He has experience in:
Youth Mental Health Counselling
Addictions Counselling
Strengths Based Counselling
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Family Counselling
Suicide Assessment and Prevention
Employment Counselling
Level 2 Medicine Wheel Facilitator
Mental Health First Aid
Child Protection Investigator for Tikinagan Child and Family Services for 2 years during which he had been involved with Alternative Justice such as Restorative practices.
Chris has a unique perspective working with First Nations youth as he has experienced several of the issues they face now while he was growing up. He spent time in foster care and group homes; he was involved in gangs and substance abuse. Chris lived in poverty and was homeless for a time as well. He has experienced depression and anxiety and can articulate the lessons that he learned to deal with these issues as coping strategies.
Chris is also a father of 6 beautiful children: 3 boys and 3 girls. He is an avid outdoorsman, loving camping, hunting and fishing. Chris is a life long learner and looks forward to beginning studies to achieve his bachelors degree in Social Work.
Contact Chris:
807-737-7373 ext. 50
Numeracy Coach
Literacy Coach
School Success Planner
Technology & Performace Measurement Lead
Assessment Lead
School Success Planning Lead/Special Education Coordinator
Early Literacy Coach
