Instruction at South Okanagan Secondary School Will Resume Monday, September 19th, 2011
The Board of Education, school, and district staff have been working diligently along with the support of the Ministry of Education to get students back in class after the devastating fire that destroyed most of South Okanagan Secondary School in Oliver. Our work is focused on getting students, teachers, and support staff back together as a community on one site and minimizing the loss of instructional time. District staff is working with Fortis and Telus to restore power, phones and Internet as of today.
Grade 10 to 12 students will be resuming all classes this Monday, September 19th using the existing portables on the SOSS site, the new Tech Ed building, and the Catholic Church. This will accommodate all grade 10-12 classes, including electives. P.E. classes, for now, will be outside and in community facilities. Students will receive new room assignments and maps.
Grade 8 & 9 students with academic courses this semester (English, Social studies, Math, French and Science) will be asked to come to the Catholic Church on Monday, September 19th between 8:30 and 12:00 noon to pick up packages that teachers and staff have put together to continue studies for a week to ten days.
Buses will run for morning and noon pick up. The church will be set up and staffed with teachers to provide assistance to students from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon and students can continue to work at home. A bus will run at noon to transport grade 8 and 9 bus students back home until the portables are on site and ready to go. We will make every effort to minimize this time.
Nine Portables are on their way to Oliver and will be set up on the existing SOSS site, hopefully by this weekend. Crews and district staff will then work to have power, plumbing, and internet so that all students will be on site as soon as possible. As the coming days and weeks go by, we will have more access to areas spared by the fire.
We feel that this is the best possible solution for our students and staff and we are committed to doing everything we can to continue a quality educational program for our students and to build a sense of community and school pride. We are inviting interested parents, students, community members and partner groups to a community meeting to provide more details about the above plan for students.
Community Meeting Regarding Resuming Class for SOSS students
Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at the Tuc-el-Nuit Elementary School Gymnasium – 6:30 p.m.
Please contact the School Board Office at 250-498-3481 ext. 115 if you have questions regarding this meeting. If you have questions that you would like us to be aware of ahead of time, please e-mail Superintendent , Bev Young, at byoung@sd53.bc.ca and we will try to address them at the community meeting.