Elementary and high school students in School District 91 are getting support from the Rio Tinto Canada Fund.
Over the next three years, $90,000 from the fund will go into expanding career-focused initiatives throughout the district’s communities.
“We’ve been known for quite a few years in the province as a school district that, for lack of a better word, punches above its weight in terms of what it provides its students,” says the district’s Career and Trades Programs Coordinator Darren Carpenter.
“So this new funding will allow us to go in some areas we haven’t been able to do so to the degree we’ve wanted to do so.”
Educational programs within the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, skill development, and trades awareness will be expanded on.
Carpenter describes these as “real and relevant”.
“Trades opportunities related to millwright or pipe-fitting with our local sawmills or pulp mills so that’s the relevant piece,” he explains.
“The real piece is getting students out into those workplace sites and a hands-on, direct exposure, sort of thinking.”
Carpenter says the school district is looking into working with Young Entrepreneur Leadership Launchpad for a pilot project next fall.
It will also help support SD 91’s annual youth entrepreneurship conference, I-Cubed, which aims to explore unique and sustainable programs with post-secondary partners.