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Regular Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed between 12 to 1 P.M.

School closures due to storms are announced on the following radio stations:  CJAD 800, MIX 96, CHOM 97.7 and on Global TV-Montreal

Ratihen:te High School

Ratihente High School

Ratihen:te, Kanehsatà:ke high school, is located on Joseph Swan Road. The school began its life on the third floor of La Mennais, the now demolished school building formerly run by the Christian Brothers. They moved into their new building in 2005.

Principal: Wathahine Nicholas & Barrie Bonspille.

Ratihente's Opening Day

The Roots Cooperative Education Program

The Work Study and Life Skills Program kicked off January 30th 2006.  It started with four students, Tyler Nelson, Jacob Oke, Kyle Abram, and Kody Abram.   The students renamed the program, The Roots, and what it meant to them was many meanings, one was getting back to one's roots, culturally, and also getting back to the basics, the roots, without strong roots, no matter how tall and strong the tree grows, it will fall.   So the basis for our program is building, or growing if you will, strong roots to support a lifetime of success. 

We covered the following subjects:

The things that worked for the program were the hands on, where they were given to opportunity to explore and experience new things.   Many of the students' travels in the Montreal region were fairly limited, and we proceeded to expand upon their understanding of the local geography, transportation, services, and communities.   We took a field trip to the Montreal Science Center, using the Two Mountains Commuter Train, and using the Metro system in Montreal.  We made our way to the Canadian Geographic Society Map store using both Metro and walking, purchasing 4 topographical maps of our region.   We then used the metro to go downtown for lunch, finishing the day with a stop at Chapters to buy a couple of books before heading back to Kanehsatake.

Our second trip was to see a movie in the West Island; it was delayed because of vandalism to the student-operated canteen.   We missed the train to Montreal, so we instead took the ferry to the Kirkland Theater. 

The following file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader Acrobat Reader or equivalent.

Roots Brochure (PDF)
(11 x 8.5) Please print at proper page size.

The student run canteen was a huge success with a few minor problems to work out.   We primarily shopped at Costco, usually getting the best deal on items that we bought in bulk and then marking them up for a profit. We also bought from local supermarkets, as well as Pizza Pizza in Hawkesbury for our Wednesday Pizza Days.   There was some resistance to the canteen from the start, and found no support for it from the High School, our primary support being from the Education Center.   During the first half of our operation, we sold mainly to the Education Staff, so we had items that included chocolate bars, soda, chips, muffins, as we switched to servicing the high school students, we dropped the high sugar content, and focused on diet sodas, frozen foods like pizza pockets, burritos. We restocked the store on a weekly to bi-monthly basis, with the students finding the best stock and comparing prices, estimating, finding new stock that may sell well, and restocking the shelves. The students gained an understanding for nutrition, and were beginning to recognize brands that were healthy, as well as products that had approval from health organizations.

For language based subjects, we found that real life experiences were best.  We had a breakfast program where the students applied their French lessons to a restaurant setting.   I think it worked well because the students could use what they had learned in a real life situation.  English; we used the Internet to post a blog about what ever they liked, whatever topic was of interests to them that day.   We also read the Montreal Gazette every day; this helped the students gain an understanding of world events as well as local news.  This was part of expanding their understanding of geography; they could read the news story, find the place on the map and make connections.   Generally it was an unstructured discussion, and differed from day to day depending on the news that was in the paper.

-- Kanawaienton Jacob Cree, The Roots Cooperative Education Program