Teachers from Christ the Redeemer Catholic Schools were given some money to spend this year.

Each of their teachers was given $200 to spend on supporting their students in the classroom.

The idea stemmed from teachers recognizing a mental health toll on students over the last two years.

Associate Superintendent Michael Kilcommons says the importance of the classroom was magnified after learning was moved online due to the pandemic.

"We've seen that in the cry from most parents and students to come back to in-person learning. Any time we have had the disruptions and had to go out of the school, they clamour for it, they really need that. When students are back in the schools they are typically happier and they have the opportunity to be that little bit more well-balanced and supportive."

Superintendent Dr. Scott Morrison came up with the idea to distribute the funding to teachers, which was done at the beginning of the 2022 school year.

They were instructed to put all of it to use at once and as soon as possible so that students could benefit from it for the entire year.

Kilcommons says it was used on a pretty wide variety of things.

"Teachers were incredibly creative and thoughtful with it. Anything from board games to sensory modulators like sound systems that could play background music or provide different smells in the classroom that are supposed to be calming, recess activities, prayer cards, you name it."

It seems to have had an effect on students, with a few anecdotes having been passed along to Kilcommons.

"I was aware of one situation with a high school class where it was board games and the students, I thought it was a great idea, they set up a board game club for noon hours and the like, and set up their own rule os 'no cellphones while we're playing board games.'"

He also heard of a group of grade three students whose teachers combined their funds to purchase playground equipment.

"They said that the students were making real efforts on their own to make sure everything was inclusive. They were inciting other students in to play games that they might not typically play with to hang out with, and taking students aside to teach them the rules of the game if they weren't familiar so that everybody could play."

Kilcommons estimates the funding was spread across approximately 540 teachers.