I'm wondering if there is any desire to share thoughts on three key issues (of many) in Saanich and across our province:
1. Foundation Skills Assessment: FSA 2010 is underway and students in grades 4 and 7 are busy completing reading, writing and numeracy assessments. Depending on where you sit, FSA is either a useful instrument for understanding student achievement and when results are aggregated up provides a useful tool for planning, or it is an unnecessary intrusion into the lives of children and teachers. I am always interested to know what people are thinking when it comes to FSA.
2. Full Day Kindergarten: Our Board, like others across the province, has made a decision in regard to FDK for September 2010 and has accepted the offer of 240 funded FDK seats for next year as we move to every child being in FDK as of September 2011. Schools in Saanich were selected based on a number of criteria related to need, space and more. FDK will be provided September in Brentwood, Sidney, KELSET, Lochside and Cordova Bay. Registration in neighbourhood (catchment area) schools is the week of February 1st, and anyone wanting to be out of catchment is invited to come to the School Board Office beginning February 8th. We will process those applications in the order in which they are received.
3. Budget 2010/11: Our budget situation for next year is, unfortunately, a major challenge. After a $3.6 million reduction (relative to carrying on with "status quo") coming into this year, we face a challenge of about $3 million as we move toward September 2010. Information on this is available on our website www.sd63.bc.ca and we invite everyone's participation in the budget setting processes that will unfold over the next few weeks.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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6 comments:
Three topics that will require a bit of consideration. I'll be back...
1) I believe that the discussion around FSA testing is useful and necessary. We were shocked, to be honest, to see the notice from the BC teachers foundation, encouraging parents to take their children out of school for the testing days.
While we encourage the discussion, we felt confused about the notice, specially since it came home with our son. We discussed the options, and decided to allow our son to participate in the assessment. We find that, in this society, testing is a regular occurrence, and experience with tests is a useful tool to have. Our son was exposed to a test, and he learned something about himself in the process of preparation for the assessment and participation in the test.
I sincerely hope that the discussion around the FSA will continue - I also sincerely hope that the politics of the assessment will not be sent home with children, and/ or that there is more information within the message that came home. The information that was sent home was insufficient, and also inappropriately biased for non-initiated to be able to make an educated decision.
Again, I'd like to stress that I understand the different sides of the division around the FSA, and I also do not believe that subversive or aggressive and biased manipulation are the way to educate participants and their guardians.
2) I hear a lot of different perspectives on the full-day KG that will start in Sept. 2010. I am personally a proponant, IF there is also more support for a gradual entry; either by means of pre-school access or subsidy, or an extended gradual entry into the school year itself. I have not read anything regarding a gradual entry into the KG year, so I do not know whether that is already being planned. And what I mean is a month (approx.) of half day KG, to support the child's rhythm in case there has not been any formal part-time separation from the home environment prior to KG entry. Alternatively, how does SD63 propose to support the child's extended separation from the home environment with an immediate full-day KG entry?
A second question arises - will the grade 1 entry after a full-time KG year be adjusted? It is my understanding that the current grade 1 entry anticipates at least a month of adjustment to full-day presence at school. How does the full-day KG decision affect the grade 1 adjustment? And what are the criteria for a change in adjustment if that is the case?
3) Oh my - that's quite the big cut again, specially since it comes so hot on the heels of last year's cut. I wish you wisdom and clarity.
As I know the difficult process of budget cuts is lingering: I am curious if you have seriously considered following a 4 day school week with a 2 week spring break and extended work days? I know that this can be a contenious issue; however, it seems that it would allow for the fewer cuts that negatively affect the students and their learning. I hear wonderful things about a four day work week expecially related to lowered absenteeism rates. I wish you the best of luck in the weeks to come as I realize this is a very challenging obstable.
I would like to hear about the district's view on 4 day school weeks too.
Good comments and questions. In terms of the four-day week, the Board is receiving a report on school calendar options this week (February 10 2010) that puts altered calendars into perspective. Closure days, whether via a four day week, a nine day fortnight, an extended spring break or specific days, provide Boards with budget savings only if support staff are not employed on those days. Our Board has been reluctant to go that route, as have most Boards, due to the inordinate impact on one employee group. Also, closure days have not proven to be beneficial to health or learning, although many claim that to be the case. That said, I am sure that closure days as an option for budget reductions will be raised somewhere during our budget deliberations in the coming weeks.
Equally (more?) interesting are the other two topics covered in the paper, those being balanced calendar (shorter summer break with more breaks through the year) and flexible scheduling as part of secondary school reform. I will be interested to see what readers have to say once you've had a chance to view the paper. It will be posted to our website soon.
Please let us know when that paper is made public? I'd be very interested.
I am also interested in hearing/reading more about the 9 day fortnight and other variations.
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