Members of the school board revealed the new Trustee Mission Statement Award during the Education Partnership Committee meeting of April 12.
Th purpose of the $500 scholarship is to acknowledge the Grade 12 student who best exemplifies the attributes of the District Mission Statement.
Candidates must be Grade 12 students who are graduating from a secondary school in SD 10. They must be able to graduate in June. They must also provide the scholarship committee with a transcript of courses taken in Grades 11 and 12, and must have achieved a grade point average of at least a C (60 per cent) in Grades 11 and 12.
Candidates must submit the application form, a resume, and transcripts to the School Board Office on or before April 30th.
The award recipient will be notified at the graduation ceremonies.
Water Testing
As per a provincial mandate, all schools have been recently tested for water quality. The results were excellent for all schools.
The results at the Fauquier School indicate following the advice of Interior Health, which is to run the water for five minutes at the start of the day before drinking water from the fountains.
New buses on their way
The district is about to receive two new buses which were approved in the fall. One is a 26 passenger bus for the Edgewood Elementary School run, the other is a 72 passenger bus for the Central Zone. For the 2016 school year, the school board is applying for the replacement of a 53-63 passenger bus to work in the Eastern Zone/Lucerne School bus run.
Several more buses will have to be replaced in the next four years as they reach the 12 year replacement age.
Sharing Aboriginal Learner Success
On April 6, the superintendent and director of leaning were invited to attend a meeting with the Ministry of Education staff regarding the success rates for Aboriginal learners. The Ministry is meeting with eight districts who have either significantly improved their success rates for Aboriginal learners, or have had strong success over many years.
SD 10 is recognized because for over 10 years, the graduation rates/six year completion rates for students who claim Aboriginal identity have been between 90 per cent and 100 per cent. The provincial average for completion/graduation within six years of Grade 8 is 63 per cent.
SD 10 selected for provincial research
The district is one of 10 to 12 districts participating in provincial research with Dr. Ken Leithwood from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), at the University of Toronto. Nlsga , Saanich, Abbotsford, Kelowna, Kamloops, and Cowichan are among the other districts chosen for interviews to assess practices around district leadership. Leithwood has contributed to the research literature around school district practises in Ontario and Alberta. This is his first time he’s done this kind of research in British Columbia.