How do you make education better in School District #53? Better – what does that mean? Better results – better teaching and better success with students that can be measured might be one concept.
An idea doing the rounds is “inquiry time” where teachers and administrators will send the students home early and collaborate in a 90 minute session on the last Wednesday of each month during the school year. Actually it might only be 7 months of the school year.
Why the headline? At a public meet Wednesday there were two reporters, the school board, administrators, and a size-able number of teachers eager to participate. Identified as parents less than 10 people. Advertising was done in media in the district to attract people interested in education and parents in a large SD stretching from Hedley to OK Falls and Osoyoos.
Inquiry time is where those that teach in each school can gather, set a goal or target, identify problem areas or students having difficulty and establish a plan to work toward a better outcome.
On May 8th this Learning Forum focused on a new model of collaboration* at the Atrium at SOSS in Oliver. Bev Young (SD53 superintendent) presented a vision for building a culture of inquiry in our district. Some teachers and administrators presented examples of inquiry and on how they have, or might use the process in their schools. The board will debate the introduction of this new concept at the regular board meeting, May 22nd.
All feedback and concerns from partner groups will be reviewed before the school district makes a final decision on this model. Forms for feedback and concerns are available on the SD website.
The gathering of less than 40 people heard the introduction of the concept before breaking into small groups to come up with concerns and the positives:
Is this a common process in other schools, districts or educational systems? Parents still concerned about loss of instruction time.
One story was that it take a certain time to cook a turkey but to educate a child or to find a unique way to get through some barriers you have to be innovative or artistic not prescriptive.
Inquiry time is to promote new practices to ensure superior outcomes. Most thought students will benefit and staff will enjoy a process to improve results. Some concern that not enough hours are to be designated for this purpose. Will it be top down? Will each school decide the goals and the procedures to get to the end of the process? Parents concerned about a change to regular routines and the daycare aspect of schools.
Will parents actually be involved or informed of what they are getting because of the change? What is the process going to look like. Needs group buy-in. No teacher can just be invited to participate – they have to want to be an active participant. This process could or should be school centric not district wide “sameness”.
*corrected spelling