Opinion: New school year off to great start at SD 53

We are off to a very positive school start for the 2017/18 school year, partly due to the positive financial position that the School District is in (see next paragraph) as well as all the staff additions and changes that are primarily due to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision on class size and composition.

It was wonderful to meet so many of our new staff at the new employee welcome celebration at Medici’s. We have a lot of young, energetic new staff joining us.

Final enrolment was due on Sept. 30, but early enrolment indicators show that we have approximately 30 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students, which is more than anticipated, but 19 less than September 2016.

The Board of Education received its audit report from Russ Jones, who is the Deputy Auditor General from the Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia) at our September regular meeting.

The report indicated that the financial statements prepared by our senior staff fairly represented the financial position of the board.

The audited financials indicated a operating surplus on June 30, 2017 of $2,306,583, an increase of $1,325,632 from June 2016.

Most of this surplus is internally restricted and approximately $1.5 million of the surplus will be transferred to the Local Capital Fund, which is used for the maintenance and upkeep of our schools.

If you are curious as to how the remaining internally restricted funds will be used, please see Note 18 of the Audited Financial Statements on the School District’s website.

The good news is that the 2016/17 school year was the first year in a very long time that the School District did not have to dip into our surplus to balance our budget at the end of the school year.

The increase in surplus can be explained by increased funding grants from the Ministry of Education and also by a higher student enrolment than anticipated.

This, of course, is good news for our district and makes for a very positive start to the 2017/18 school year, especially after hearing that the Additional Student Transportation Fund will be continuing for the 2017/18 school year.

This year our district will receive $209,099 – this funding is to enhance safety and services to students, reduce ride times and to increase the efficiency of our transportation service.

We will also be using some of this money for transportation vouchers for our Strong Start parents who have trouble accessing Strong Start due to transportation difficulties.

If you would like transportation assistance to access your local Strong Start, please contact your local elementary school so that they can assist you in the application for funds.

On Oct. 5, we celebrated World Teachers’ Day. The United Nations’ World Teachers’ Day celebrates the role teachers play in providing quality education at all levels.

In appreciation of the vital role that teachers play in education and the development of children, SD53 and the South Okanagan Similkameen Teachers’ Union have made a joint contribution to Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan.

This organization, founded by Alaina Podmorrow while in elementary school in B.C., supports girls in Afghanistan and their struggle to exercise their right for education.

At our regular board meeting, Marcus Toneatto and Helen Gallagher presented the Aboriginal Annual Report for 2016/17. The report is available on the School District website and included some Promising Practices (2016/17 school year) and areas that required further effort for the 2017/18 school year. The goals for the 2017/18 school year were also discussed and include:

– To increase efforts to engage aboriginal parents and families

– To increase a sense of belonging and social emotional competencies for all

– To improve the academic performance of aboriginal students

We want to thank all of our students, teachers, administrators, communities and Aboriginal Advisory Council for their dedication and hard work to ensure the success of our Aboriginal students.

We are in our second year of implementation of the K-9 revised B.C. curriculum.

Teachers are specifically teaching the core competencies of communication, thinking and the personal and social competencies. The core competencies along with literacy and numeracy foundations and essential content and concepts are at the centre of the redesigned curriculum and assessment. Students need to develop these competencies in order to engage in deep, life-long learning.

The Grades 10-12 redesigned curriculum are in draft and ready for optional use for the 2017/18 school year. As with the K-9 curriculum, the redesigned Grades 10-12 curriculum is intended to support both disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning, encourage locally developed curriculum, and enable a variety of learning environments.

Schools and classrooms are changing the way they structure learning, teach and assess learning to prepare students for a modern and changing world.

We often feature what teachers are trying in their classrooms at monthly Education Committee meetings of the Board of Education. These meetings are open to the public, parents and community members. Please see our website for dates and times. See this link for more information on the redesigned curriculum https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca

We were successful in the renewal of our $27,000 grant from Interior Health. This grant will ensure the continuation of the Health Promoting School Co-ordinator. Samantha Dunlop will continue as a 0.2 teacher coordinator. The focus will be:

– Promotion of child and youth mental health and wellness, particularly through the early identification of the student and support to the classroom teacher and family

– Promoting of child and youth healthy lifestyles, healthy weights, particularly through the teaching of healthy foods and a well-balanced life style, diet, sleep and hygiene

– Igniting the conversation about choices to self-medicate with tobacco, alcohol and other substances. During the summer our Maintenance staff worked hard on numerous summer projects – this included mechanical upgrades, painting, new flooring and renovations to some of our schools. We would like to thank them for their hard work in ensuring that our schools are safe and welcoming spaces for our students.

Should you have any questions, contact me at 250-498-1333.

Submitted by Marieze Tarr, Chairperson School District No. 53 (Okanagan Similkameen)

MARIEZE TARR

Special to the Times