Regina Catholic schools gearing up to welcome Ukrainian students

The Regina Catholic School Division is getting ready to welcome as many as 50 new students from Ukraine into its schools this year.

Karen Quiroz-Norman, a multilingual and multicultural learning consultant with the Regina Catholic School Division, said the division is working with various different organizations to prepare the students and their families for the upcoming school year.

“We will be meeting with them and providing information about school registration, and once they know what schools they’ll be attending, then we’ll be able to do more,” she said.

“Some of them already have addresses, some of them don’t, so it is difficult to determine what schools they’ll be attending until they have residences.”

Quiroz-Norman said the plans for getting each student settled into their new schools will look different for everyone. Some schools might only have one new Ukrainian student, she said, while others could have several.

“We could have a school that has one new Ukrainian student, and we could potentially have a school that has ten,” she explained.

“We also work with the Regina Open Door Society and settlement support workers in the school, and they help with the newcomers to Regina. Not only for the students, but also the parents.”

While they aren’t used to welcoming so many new students from a different country Quiroz-Norman said the division will be ready for the challenges that come their way.

“They all come with different backgrounds, circumstances and we’ll get to know more about them once we meet with the students one on one,” she said.

“We’ll then be able to provide this information to the teachers, so they know how to help support the students. In the schools we have some additional English teachers, councillors, learning resource teachers, and our administrators.”

The first day of school for Regina Catholic is set for Sep. 1.