A few years ago, Kyla Pelletier had a vision for the athletics program at Spencer Middle School.
She hoped it would be a strong program with dozens of kids of all ages and abilities participating, and one that gave students a sense of belonging and school pride.
Now, Pelletier’s vision has come to life, as the program has seen a boom in enrolment recently. This year alone, the school has more than 250 students participating in sports.
“It’s increasing significantly every year. Last year we had a huge jump in athletes,” said Pelletier, a Grade 7 teacher and the school’s athletics director. “We want to provide opportunities in all the sports that we can for the kids … We’re creating an athletic culture.”
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The athletics program currently runs seven sports – soccer, basketball, volleyball, rugby, badminton and track and field. New this year, they’ve also added a girls field hockey program. Of the school’s 773 students, roughly 33 per cent are participating in at least one sport.
Over the past few years, Pelletier, along with a co-athletics director Leanne Bilous and a core group of coaches including Brad Lidstone and Bruce Biro, have helped raised the profile of the program. The volunteers have worked on opening lines of communications with an athletics board for students to check daily and sending out weekly emails to parents.
The dedication of the program’s 19 teacher coaches and four community coaches, coupled with the realignment of the school from grades 7, 8 and 9 to grade 6, 7, and 8 in 2015, helped to boost the profile of the program as well.
“It [sports] helps with their brains, physical activities and helps with providing a sense of community belonging and connection and being part of something bigger than themselves,” said Pelletier, adding coaches have formed a number of partnerships with local sports organizations to come to the school for talks and clinics.
“It also is attractive to those kids who maybe school isn’t their thing, but sports is, and so it keeps kids in school when they might not stay in otherwise … We’re really proud of what we’ve built and we’re proud of the kids.”
The program also helps students build fundamentals skills in a variety off sports to enable them to compete in high school athletics programs in the West Shore.
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