“Have you ever wanted your own school? Your very own gym, work-out rooms, computer labs, construction shop, and mechanic station? Your very own set of staff ready to obey every single instruction you give? Your own set of more than 20 printers from every corner? Your very own football team and cheerleading team??”

“Look no further! Your chance has come! Bellerose Composite High School is up for grabs!”

“Shining with brilliance in both student minds and football helmets, Bellerose Composite High School is not to disappoint! Bursting with endless features such as the working-bee calculus class and instant-entertainment drama classes, you won’t need a TV ever again!” reads the ad on Kijiji and Craigslist, listed for $870, 000.

If you haven’t figure it out already, the offer was listed on the websites by the principal as a graduation prank.

Larry Dick, principal at Bellerose has been getting gag offers by text message to buy the school, including one proposing to turn the school into a turtle sanctuary.

Not only was Bellerose listed for sale but also Paul Kane High School took park in the prank as listed for $1.2 million.

Paul Kane High School graduation took place last week and Bellerose Composite High School graduation takes place this week. Congratulations graduates!

In Winnipeg, an explicit video presenting the awareness of teen suicide was shown to a Grade 7 class which has made a father furious. He states his son was so distressed from the video that he had a health emergency during class and had fainted.

The father also comments that both himself and his wife had a grueling time sitting through the entire video and was surprised how the school could show this to the students without any kind of consent form for parents to sign.

The teacher accountable for showing the video to her students has already made an apology to the father of the child.

Kim Rocco Shields, the director of the video has said that the video was intended for older audiences like adults and late teens that can’t really grasp the idea of why kids were being bullied and committing suicide.

Below is the full video which conveys awareness of teen bullying and teen suicide. Is this video too graphic for students to watch or has this issue been exaggerated and this the perfect tool to get the message across to teens?

Alberta Technology Leader in Education is a conference that supports education through the convergence of learning, leadership and technology. Kelsea Rose Klassen, a student who is currently becoming a teacher shares her experience with last year’s conference and how informative the keynote speaker Drew Dudley was. What I couldn’t agree more is what she takes away from the conference.

“We have to take pride in our accomplishments, especially as future teachers, because we are role models and if we can not accept a compliment how are we supposed to teach others to.  We build trust with people in our lives by being kind and gracious and taking the time to appreciate others in kind.  Small reassurances and recognitions can have the largest impact on all facets of a person’s life and we must try to make people know that they matter on a daily basis.”

Klassen also visited several vendor booths at the conference and provides her opinion about them, including InviteRight.

“InviteRight has a great concept to eliminate inefficient paper usage for forms in schools.  Dave and Ryan (I forgot to write down their last names) were eager to talk about their product and had plenty of information right there as examples.  The company helps with organizing consent forms, school lunch orders, ticket purchases, and even school course registration.  They also keep track of the accounting associated with many of these forms to make it easier for secretaries and the like to use their simple program instead of a pile of envelopes with money and forms.  I would definitely use them in the future as I remember how difficult it was to schedule courses on paper for high school and wait for hours to fix it.”

You can read more about her experience at the conference on her blog here.

Congratulations to our Business Development Director Ryan Godfrey for his second new born baby!

As kids get prepared for the final months of the school year, several parents are pondering about what they can do to fixate their kids with for the summer. How about a zombie survival camp?

The first ever zombie survival camp will available to the public in Portland, Oregon where actors portray real-life zombies while campers will be trained in the best way to dispose of them. The aim of the camp is to blend fun with significant skills. Groups of campers partake in an assortment of movie-inspired zombie settings throughout a 2 day course. Instructors teach campers combat skills such as throwing axes, using a sword, constructing an outdoor fire and acquiring shelter.

The zombie craze has become enormously popular in western pop culture with many movies (28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, Resident Evil), books (World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide) and television series (The Walking Dead) surfacing.

Why do individuals love zombies so much? People love the thought of the world existing in complete anarchy. Civilization must survive in small groups and trust each other in order to survive the epidemic. Unlike vampires and werewolves, zombies appear less mythological since they are the closest to humans – resurrected dead corpses.

So once the apocalyptic epidemic begins changing people into zombies, will your kids be prepared?

What are life hacks you ask? Well, they are little hacks that make your life a little easier. The following “hacks” may help you be more organized, solve solutions in an inexpensive way, do things a lot quicker and maybe teach you something you never knew before.

Recently, I’ve stumbled across a remarkable ad campaign. At a first glimpse, you might start thinking, “Why would they display things on a security camera?” Generally, people will associate security cameras with negative connotations, revealing acts of crime or some inappropriate conduct. This viral video refutes that idea by presenting the small acts of kindness and events that can be captured. When you reach the end of the video, it might be disheartening when you realize it’s a marketing ad for Coca-Cola, but maybe it will still leave a smile on your face as it did for me.

URL: http://electionbuddy.com/

Service Offered: Personalized online elections

Special Deals: Varies

My Experience: Because our school is working towards our “Golden Council” award for NASC, we were very interested in doing an online election. I looked at various companies, but finally settled on ElectionBuddy because they seemed most capable of handling the needs of our mid-sized school.

Going online to ElectionBuddy, I was very pleased to see that they offered a free trial. The website itself is relatively simple to use. I setup a trial run and went for it. The sample election that I set up was really easy to do and it worked as promised.

Price: The price is separate for each election and varies depending on the type and number of voters:

Free, $0/election, up to 20 voters
Basic, $19/election, up to 200 voters
Middle, $49/election, up to 500 voters
High, $99/election, up to 1,000 voters

Shipping: None, the elections are delivered electronically

Customer Service: Because I had questions about pricing, I did have a chance to interact with customer service. ElectionBuddy offers an online form to help facilitate their customer service. Within a few hours, I was emailed with a response.

Product Quality: The elections work as promised and are easy to set up. Votes are tabulated and you have control over the many functions and features. I thought the ballots were easy to read, voting was clear-cut, and the instructions are very easy to follow. Many of the features were customizable.

- LuciA