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South Okanagan Photos

Report of Administration – School District #53

Student Achievement

New Curricula: draft redesigned curricula for several areas are now available for review.

See: www.curriculum.gov.bc.ca<http://www.curriculum.gov.bc.ca

More curricular areas will be added as they are available. At this time, we are asking administrators to share with their staff and engage in conversations about the changes. There is much more to come on curriculum, assessment, communicating student learning and graduation requirements. Maureen Dockendorf from the Ministry of Education and possibly Rod Allen, Superintendent of Achievement and Learning has agreed to come to our district in January to provide an update for teachers, administrators and trustees.

Innovation / Initiatives

Team Inquiry Model – Support for Schools: Dr. Linda Kaser and Dr. Judy Halbert, provincial, national, and international leaders of inquiry and leadership development will be working with our district and schools as they enhance their work around inquiry and developing a culture of inquiry. Judy and Linda will be visiting our district January 30th, April 15th and again on August 25th for a day on inquiry. Tentative plans for January 30th include a dinner meeting for teachers, administrators and support staff involved in school inquiry, as well as plans to work during the day with staff members from SOSS and TEN. Tentative plans for April 15th include a dinner meeting for teachers and administrators as well as working with the staff of another school and meeting with available trustees in the afternoon to review the district work. We are fortunate to have Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert supporting us in this process. Feedback from the October 25th session was very positive.

SCHOOL-BASED INITIATIVES

Winter Activities: a wealth of winter and Christmas activities are planned by the schools. Please consult your school newsletters or school websites for dates, times and details.

Career Prep: Our career programs are moving along nicely. Career teachers report that presently we have 95 students doing work experience. We have 9 secondary school apprenticeships carried over from 2012/13 and between 7 and 9 new ones almost ready to go this year. Our goal by the end of June is to have 14 new SSA’s on their way. We should have at least 8 ACE IT (Accelerated Credit Enrolment to Industry Training) students ready to go by February with the possibility of 2 or 3 more.

YES-2-IT: Plans for the YES-2-IT program are coming together nicely. We have been notified that we will once again get the $4,000 grant! The tentative dates for sessions are: • Monday, January 27 SESS, Keremeos • Tuesday, January 28 SOSS, Oliver and Okanagan Falls • Thursday, January 30 SOSS, Oliver and Tuc-el-Nuit • Friday, January 31 OSS, Osoyoos Before the event, Mr. Turnbull will visit all grades 6 and 7 classrooms to introduce the program to students and teachers and to do safety training.  

Gateway to the Trades:

Our new project will be to offer a Gateway to the Trades program at Southern Okanagan Secondary School in Semester 2 this year. This joint program with Okanagan College is designed to give secondary students the opportunity to explore potential careers in the trades. Successful students will receive credit for four high school graduation courses (16 credits), develop documented skills that will support employment in a trades related occupation, and be eligible to participate in a Trades Apprenticeship Foundation Program either as a secondary student through the ACE IT initiative or direct entry at the Okanagan College. It will be full-time, Monday to Friday for a duration of 12 weeks starting February 10 and ending on May 16. It will be taught in the wood shop by a fully qualified Okanagan College instructor. This program will be open to all students in the district. As we hope to draw in disengaged (students who have left school) and alternate students, YouLearn.ca will work closely with career teachers to register students.

Middle Years Development Instrument: The surveys are complete and have been sent off to HELP-UBC for scoring. We look forward to getting the results back in the spring. Thank you to the students who took part in this important survey, and to our teachers for administering it.

Operations

District Calendar:

We have begun the process of developing the district calendar for 2014/15 and hope to have a draft for January’s committee meetings. SOSTU is proposing to add 2 to 3 days inside the September to June bookends while maintaining the 2 week spring break. We are consulting with them at this time as this concept would require extending the school day.

ConnectEDBC: The province has selected Follet’s Aspen student information system to replace BCeSIS. A team of about 12 teachers, school administrators, technicians and district staff took part in the on-line demonstration on November 26. The new system was favorably received by all. It seemed to be quite flexible, easy to use and have the many applications that we are looking for, including student and parent portals. At this time we are holding discussions with our district technology advisory council and with our management team and hope to make a decision soon on committing to it. Once we are committed, we will develop an implementation plan. Superintendent Young will host a second viewing on December 10th from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. at the district office.

Learning Improvement Fund Approval: We received confirmation from the Ministry that the Learning Improvement Fund (LIF) plan submitted for School District No. 53 for the amount of $294,183 has been approved. These funds are included in the regular disbursement of operating grants to school districts by the Ministry of Education. Any funds not expended during the district fiscal year will reduce the following years’ eligible grant by an equivalent amount.

November 2013 Enrolment

Student enrolment is 2357.93 which is an overall decrease from September 2013 of 1.62 FTE. Elementary school enrolment decreased by 2.0 FTE, secondary school enrolment decreased by 18.75 FTE and YouLearn enrolment increased by 19.12 FTE.

CUPE Local 523 – Memorandum of Agreement On December 2, the negotiating committees of CUPE Local 523 and the Okanagan Similkameen, Okanagan Skaha and North Okanagan-Shuswap school districts agreed to a Memorandum of Agreement. Details of the settlement will be released once the agreement has been ratified by all parties. The Board of School District No. 53 is pleased that the committees were able to conclude discussions at the bargaining table. 

SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 53 (Okanagan Similkameen)

Human Resources Processes

The district is continuing to streamline processes in the administration system with a recent implementation of paperless timesheets and on-line leave approvals. The Board restricted surplus dollars in 2012 for upgrades to the administration system and the system improvements are reducing paper and processing time in schools and the district office.