Cortes Island Academy's Third Year starts Sept 3

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Academy’s third year starts on Tuesday September 3, 2024. Executive DIrector Manda Aufochs Gillespie explained that there are a number of innovative new programs this semester as well as popular facilitators from previous years. The Mother Tree Network, Hakai Intitute, Hollyhock and Power of Hope are all contributing partners. For the first time ever, there are also still some last minute spots available for new students.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “For those of you who do not know what the Cortes Island Academy is, it's an accredited experiential place-based high school program that happens right here on Cortes Island and is a partnership with the school district, the Cortes Island School, the Cortes Island Community Foundation and pretty much every other organization and person on Cortes, because boy, does it take a lot of heart and help to make it happen.”

“This is our third year, and we've decided to change all sorts of things up in order to keep it fresh.”

“We'll start on September 3rd with a meet and greet. Please, please come and be part of it. Meet the students, some of the facilitators and get behind the scenes a little earlier on.”

“That Labor Day weekend you will start seeing teenagers arrive back on the island.”

“We still have some spots for this year. So if you have a special young person in your life who would be a great addition to this kind of experiential project based learning, send them our way.”

“This year we have lower enrollment from Cortes students because there are very few local kids going into grade 10. That's both a little bit sad and also something that we knew would come. There are just years on Cortes where there are less kids or where the kids have already had to leave in that hard effort of trying to find schooling that works for them. For the first time, we don't have foreign exchange students, but it looks like we already have two signed up for next year.”

“As we have in years past, we have students coming from other communities, most especially other rural islands - so Sonora, Reed, and some from as further out afield as Pender.”

“We're doing a couple of things that we're pretty excited about.”

“We have partnered with the Mother Tree Network and Hollyhock Leadership Institute and are doing a leadership intensive at Hollyhock October 20th through 25th. This gathering uses the creative facilitation model, which has really been popularized through Power of Hope, and is based on exploring the interface of ecology, the arts and experiential education. We have room for 30 students in a week long intensive with Dr. Suzanne Simard, other leaders from the Mother Tree Network, the Juno nominated musician Ruby Singh, a team of other local facilitators and knowledge holders, and some of the best known facilitators from the Power of Hope camps. Kari McClelland, who's perhaps the best known and most beloved of all Power of Hope facilitators is the main facilitator for that week. They're all going to be having a camp experience at Hollyhock.”

“This case leadership intensive is for the Cortes Island Academy students and other students are coming to join. There is still some spaces for this. We're prioritizing local and indigenous youth, but there are still spaces for any kids and there are some scholarships available for this workshop.

“Cortes Island Academy students are also going to be joining with some other students at Hakai again for a climate intensive to, see what the current science is around all things related to climate and the ecological impacts of our changing ecosystems. They spend a week at the incredible state of our science facilities on Quadra Island.”

“The themes this year are climate and art."