At the April Education Committee meeting trustees looked at a new course that was locally developed by Ardith Parker and Lindsey McVicar. The course was developed out of a need to offer students in the alternate program meaningful hands-on alternatives to textbook work. The course, “Expression Through Art 10” offers students an opportunity to create and express themselves while earning 4 credits towards graduation.
The assignments in this course are designed to promote relationship building between alternate staff members and students through guided journaling exercises related to each of the art assignments.
Tuc El Nuit Elementary (TEN) principal, Shendah Benoit, presented a proposal for late French Immersion to the Education Committee in April. The committee has given her approval to explore offering this opportunity to students in the community to see if there are sufficient numbers to support late immersion. If there is enough interest in the district for this program to proceed another request will come to the Board of Education for approval at the end of May.
We are inviting community members, parents and staff to attend our next learning forum on May 13th at 7:00 pm in the Student Support Services building (annex), School Board Office, Oliver. The learning forum will look at the 2015/2016 budget and we will be receiving input into our budget at this forum.
In 2013 the school district entered into an agreement with the Yukon Department of Education to provide distributed learning services to students in grades K-12. In 2013/2014, approximately 12 students enrolled with YouLearn and the district received $75,000 from the program. The program has grown in 2014/2015 to 24 elementary students and has generated revenue of $144,000 for the district this school year.
This year’s results for the Middle years Development Instrument (MDI) for grades 4 and 7 are due out later this month. This is the district’s second year for grade 4 and the first year for grade 7. MDI is a questionnaire that goes beyond academics by focusing on the thoughts, feelings and experiences of children inside and outside of school. Experiences in the middle years have critical and long lasting effects on brain development, resiliency and success. Research continues to show that children’s social and emotional well-being affects how they learn.
The Board of Education met with our MLA, Linda Larson, to share our concerns regarding funding, administrative staffing cuts, the freeze on exempt staff salaries, Bill 11 and also our concerns regarding erosion of the co-governance roles of trustees despite signing a co-governance agreement with the Ministry of Education in December.
Our Board will be writing a letter to the Minister of Education outlining our district’s budget reductions from 2009. We would like to draw attention to the fact that we have shared services and reduced senior staff since 2009, well before the direction from the Ministry of Education.
Superintendent Young, myself, Mayor Hovanes (Oliver), Sherry Philpot Adhikary (councilor, Keremeos) and Kirsten Mclean (parent and business owner, Osoyoos) attended a meeting at Mt. Boucherie School, Kelowna hosted by the Ministry of Education. The forum’s focus was on K-12 innovation. Speakers focused on why the current education system has to change and what the implications for the K-12 system will be. It was good to see that our district offers many of the same innovative opportunities for students as the larger school districts. For me the highlight was definitely the presentations by the students. They showed us how they are learning and practicing 21st Century learning skills.
Our Board met with Mayors, councilors and RDOS directors on Wednesday April 22nd to share enrollment trends, our budget, EDI (early development index), MDI (middle development index) results and also results from the McCreary report.
We do believe that it takes a community to raise a child and by sharing some of our results it might also give other leaders in our communities a better understanding of the needs of families in our communities and we are hopeful that they will keep the challenges that we as a school district face in mind when they have to make important decisions at their respective Councils and Boards.
Trustees attended the BCSTA AGM in Vancouver April 16th to 19th. At the business session, motions were passed that expressed trustees’ frustration with Bill 11, other motions clearly stood in defense of the value and autonomy of locally elected boards and at the heart of most of the motions was the concern of trustees for the continuation of a BC public education system that ensure the rights of all students to a quality public education system.
Marieze Tarr
Board Chair
Special to the Chronicle
