We would like to congratulate all of our education partners and especially Jim Insley, our educators, and the Aboriginal Education Advisory Council on the excellent graduation results of 2014. We received a letter from the Minister of Education, Peter Fassbender congratulating the Board of Education on the 75%, six year completion rate of our Aboriginal students. Our district is well above the provincial average of 62%. We are very proud of the hard work of our Aboriginal students and all of our partners. We will continue to work hard for the success of all of our students.

The Aboriginal Education Advisory Council meeting was held on Tuesday February 17th. The meeting was hosted by the Osoyoos Indian Band at Tuc-el-Nuit School. The committees of the council are working on several projects and events: Pow-Wow will be on April 10th and 11th at Osoyoos Secondary, the Aboriginal graduation will be held in Oliver on June 16th at the Venables Theatre and a “new “committee this year, which includes one elementary and one secondary teacher from the district as well as Dave Foster (principal Osoyoos Elementary), are working on a dinner with a Residential School presentation by Brad Marsden on March 4th from 4-7.30 pm.

The intent of this committee is to become familiar with the Residential School curriculum for grades 5 and 10 teachers. This new curriculum will be introduced next year. They will receive two full days of information given by our Aboriginal knowledge keepers.
Student forums will be held at South Okanagan Secondary, Osoyoos Secondary and Similkameen Elementary Secondary schools. At the forums teachers and administrators are hoping to gather input from students that will inform their school goals, inquiry work and direction for the next year. A facilitator will lead these forums and we are looking forward to hearing the results of the student conversations.

Foundations Skills Assessment (FSA) for 2015 was administered to grades 4 and 7 students in February. The FSA assesses students’ skills in reading, writing and numeracy. The FSA’s were marked on February 21st and a big thank you to our FSA lead scorers: Shannon Miller (writing), Scott Tremblay (reading), and Shendah Benoit (numeracy). Dave Foster coordinated the administration and marking plan for the district – thank you Dave!

Bev Young, superintendent, received information about a $5,000 Skills Training Access Support grant available upon application to the Ministry of Education. The intent of this grant is to support rural districts in developing local solutions to improve access opportunities for students living in areas that do not have a post-secondary institution or sufficient local support to pursue their career interests. We will be submitting an application by the February 27th due date and will be notified by March 6th if we are selected.

The Board saw firsthand what a difference the trades programs are making in the lives of our students. At the last Board meeting Kelsey Gorgichuk and Rod Kitt, Career Prep teacher, made a presentation to the Board. Kelsey graduated from OSS last year and is well on her way to be a fully qualified welder, she did her training at Thompson River University and is currently working in Saskatchewan as a welder. In September 2014 we had nine students enrolled in the ACE IT/Dual credit program and in February 2015 we now have 19 students enrolled. These students are working towards becoming carpenters, mechanics, welders, chefs, plumbers, estheticians and aircraft maintenance engineers while completing their high school diplomas. We need to provide these options for students to ensure multiple pathways to graduation and the success of all students in school.

We are urging parents with kindergarten age students, who will be attending school in our district, to please register at their neighborhood school. Early registration helps us in our planning, staffing and grade configurations for elementary schools next year.
Graduation times and dates for our secondary schools are as follow:
 Osoyoos Secondary School – Thursday, June 25th at 6 pm in the OSS gym.
 Similkameen Elementary Secondary School – Thursday, June 25th at 4 pm in the SESS gym
 Southern Okanagan Secondary School – Thursday, June 25th at 7 pm in the SOSS gym
 YouLearn.ca – Thursday, June 18th at 6 pm in the SOSS Atrium

Effective May 1st, 2015 Victoria would no longer be funding upgrading courses for adults who have graduated with a dogwood certificate. The Ministry will continue to fund graduated adults with a dogwood certificate if they enroll in Literacy Foundation courses. Students who have completed school with a BC School Completion Certificate will continue to be funded if they enroll in upgrading courses. In 2013/14 the district received $51,775 through this grant. We anticipate revenue to be reduced due to these changes.

The Ministry of Education has been working with districts to upgrade district networks. The Next Generation Network (NGN) will enable faster Internet connections, greater bandwidth capacity and improve reliability of technology and provide improved security features. Districts throughout the province are transitioning to the NGN over a three year period. SD53 is part of the 2015 transition plan and expects to be converted to the NGN by fall. In order to access the new network, the district requires upgraded technology equipment that will cost approximately $50,000, however, the improved speed and other features with improve school and student connectivity.

More information on this project can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5cs6TQO4Q&feature=youtube

At the last regular Board of Education meeting the Board approved our revamped smoke-free policy. This policy includes smokeless tobacco-free and electronic smoking products. The revised trustee code of conduct as well as the transportation of students policy (revisions to regulations) also received notice of motion. The Board also approved the 2014/2015 Amended Annual Budget. Our amended budget reflects a decrease in our Provincial grant money from the Ministry of Education due to the labor dispute and a decline in our student population. We will end the year with a projected deficit of $585,767 which will be funded from our surplus.
Trustees will be attending the BCSTA Thompson Okanagan Branch meeting on the weekend of February 27th in Vernon. At the Branch meeting we will be visiting the Winter House and we will attend presentations from a variety of educators in the Vernon school district who will be presenting on new education initiatives in their district.

Should you have any questions, please contact me at 250-498-1333.
Submitted by Marieze Tarr, Chairperson
School District No. 53 (Okanagan Similkameen)