February 27, 2013
The Learning Forum, held February 13th in Osoyoos, was well attended by staff, teachers, administrators, parents and students. Rod Allen, Superintendent of Learning, Ministry of Education, Victoria, was the guest speaker. The topic was the new BC Education Plan and 21st Century Learning. He explained that the new plan is based on the principle that every learner will realize their full potential and will contribute to the well-being of our province. The plan was developed by teachers, administrators and ministry staff and will be more flexible in how students learn and the number of learning outcomes teachers will be responsible for to allow more room for creativity, problem-solving and collaboration. Students will play a larger role in their education and the plan will focus on student-centered learning. He was very clear in that we will stay focused on the basics, reading, writing and numeracy and that we will continue to see an increase in the use of technology as a tool in the classroom. Teachers from both Osoyoos Elementary and Osoyoos Secondary schools demonstrated how they are already integrating many principles of the plan in their classrooms. We are very privileged to have so many passionate teachers and administrators in our district who go above and beyond to ensure the success of students in our district.
This spring our district will be engaging in a process for creating a shared vision for School District No. 53. The purpose is to involve all school stakeholders including staff, parents, students and community to have a voice in what the next five to seven years should look like and be like for learning in SD 53. The process allows for establishing shared goals and common values that provide a “road map” for our work over the next few years and informs resource allocation and the district budget formation. Further information and dates will be shared soon; please be sure to participate in the process as we want all of our partners to own and share our vision.
There is also a conversation around the district with staff, PAC’s, administrators and trustees regarding embedding collaboration time into the school day. Our district wants to be an innovative district; innovation is about recognizing that old approaches may not be working for all learners, identifying what the key needs of our current learners are and asking good questions about how we can do things differently and then creating new strategies based on knowledge and inquiry about what does work. One proposed way to embed Team Inquiry time into our schools is to dismiss students one hour early every second week while still ensuring that legislated instructional minutes are met. This would allow teachers and administrators structured time to engage an inquiry mindset with colleagues in order to improve practice, deepen learning and to improve student success through identification of struggling or disengaged learners and to implement strategies that will target these learners. The Board is planning a meeting for interested parents and staff members to come and share their opinions before any decisions are made. This meeting will take place on March 13th at 6:30 pm in the School Board Office. Please come out and join the conversation.
We have just received a letter from Decoda Literacy Solutions (previously Literacy Now 2010) stating that they will not be providing funding for the literacy outreach coordinator position in the South Okanagan Similkameen this year. This is due to a cut in funding from the Ministry of Education. Our members of the task group, Literacy Now South Okanagan Similkameen, are very disappointed and are presently looking at options to allow us to move forward.
Our staff participated in various Professional Development activities on February 15th. A Technology Sharing Day was held at SOSS for teachers and CUPE staff and teachers from across the district presented and participated. The feedback from this workshop was very positive and we plan for this to be an annual event.
All of our schools participated in Pink Shirt Day (Wednesday, February 27th) in some way. This day raises awareness on bullying issues in schools, the community and over the internet. All students and staff were encouraged to wear something pink. Most schools held assemblies and Osoyoos Elementary collaborated with their PAC to have a Unity Lunch. They rented the Sonora gym and the entire school and staff had a sit down lunch. This was a wonderful event and a big thank you to all the parents for their hard work to make this possible.
On Friday, February 22nd, students from SESS and YouLearn.ca took part in a ham radio call with Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut currently living on the International Space Station. What a wonderful experience for the students from Ms. Beebe’s and Mr. Granger’s grade 6 classes and the 18 students from YouLearn.ca. Melissa Vesper and Naomi Antler had their questions chosen so they had the opportunity to talk to Chris directly. We would like to thank Uplands Elementary School for inviting us to participate and to Ms. Patricia Tribe for arranging this opportunity.
The Board passed an amended budget on February 27th. The total budget bylaw amount for 2012/2013 is $28,015,833. There is a decrease of $200,000 in the projected operating revenue and a decrease of $28,000 in projected expenses from the preliminary budget. The district spent $495,110 on capital asset purchases, primarily to upgrade servers and IT infrastructure. We have a projected remaining surplus as of June 30th of $587,736. Our district is currently identifying future cost pressures that could impact upcoming budgets and this includes an increase to Teacher’s Pension Plan, possible wage increases, MSP premium increase, and transitioning from HST to GST/PST. It is anticipated that the cost pressure for SD53 could be over $500,000 in 2013/2014.
The Board passed Procedural Bylaw No. 21 at the February 27th regular meeting. This bylaw was updated and deals with the establishment of procedures regarding the conduct of meetings pursuant to the School Act. A motion that board member compensation rates for the 2012/2013 year remain unchanged was also passed at this meeting.
IBM has generously donated Young Explorers equipment for OK Falls and Tuc-el-Nuit Elementary Schools. The equipment will provide young children and their families with an opportunity to learn literacy, numeracy and digital skills using fun computer activities.
The Board of Education would also like to thank the Rotary Club of Osoyoos for their donation of $1,000 to the Roots of Empathy program. This donation will be used to train volunteers to instruct the program thus ensuring the sustainability of this valuable program in our schools. It is the mission of Roots of Empathy to build caring, peaceful and civil societies through the development of empathy in children and adults.
Should you have any questions, please contact me (Marieze Tarr) at 250-498-1333.