The Board reviewed all the feedback from our partner groups with regards to moving two ProD days from August back into the calendar bookends and although the Board understands and supports the rationale and the importance of professional development for our teachers, we feel that we cannot implement the request at this time. As trustees elected by our communities we value feedback from our communities and partner groups and we heard that they are not comfortable with the loss of two additional school days in lieu of four minutes extra on other school days. They are also concerned about the cost of extra daycare and the timing after the introduction of Team Inquiry Model (TIM time) last year. The Board will be exploring all options with our partner groups in the coming year. Thank you to everyone who took the time to provide feedback to the Board.
We would like to invite all of our parents and community members to attend our April 15th Inquiry Time event at 7:00 pm at the Osoyoos Secondary School library. Linda Kaiser and Judy Halbert who are renowned educators, researchers and authors on inquiry and leadership development will facilitate this session. They have worked closely with our schools on inquiry and will share with us their insights on the impact of inquiry, provincial and international perspectives as well as their insights from their work so far with our district. This will be an opportunity for everyone to become familiar with what TIM time is being used for, the long term goals and also for any questions around the inquiry process to be answered.
We are very proud of all of our students who participated in the SkillsBC Okanagan Regional event that took place on the Okanagan College campus in Kelowna. Our students placed first in every event we entered apart from the Culinary Arts where we had to compete with students from Okanagan College. Congratulations to Dalton Rose (OSS), Jagdeep Sumal (SESS), Zac Beaudoin (OSS), Foster Kane (SOSS), Cowan Kye (OSS), Brody Porter and Parmeet Brar (SESS) who all placed first in their events and who will now be competing in the Provincial Skills Canada contest in Abbotsford on April 9th, 2014. Good Luck to all of you.
Our Board of Education will be writing a letter in support of the BC School Trustee Association Stability for Students Action Plan to the Minister of Education, Peter Fassbender. In the letter we urge the Minister to ensure immediate and long-term stability in the provision of educational programs for students and ask that student success must not be compromised during or after the resolution of the BC Supreme Court ruling between the BC Teachers’ Federation and the Province. We feel strongly that the class size and composition matter be resolved at the provincial bargaining table and that if and when changes to class size and composition are required they be phased in to minimize disruption to students. We also want any costs related to changes to class size and composition be fully funded by the provincial government with no negative impact on current funding levels.
We are excited to announce that our Cawston Primary Preschool will open on April 1st. We now have preschools in every one of our elementary schools and we know that this is a very valuable service to our parents and to the development of our students.
Most of our schools have updated and modernized their school websites. With the websites updated we can proceed to make our mission, vision and values graphic more interactive. We have received a lot of positive feedback about our schools’ websites. Be sure to visit your school’s website and please provide feedback directly to the school administrator if you feel it can be even more user friendly.
Submitted by Marieze Tarr, Chairperson
School District No. 53 (Okanagan Similkameen)
Feel free to contact me at mtarr@sd53.bc.ca or 250-498-1333