Purpose • Passion • Persistence
Southeast Kootenay School District 5
FRAMEWORK FOR ENHANCING STUDENT LEARNING
The Southeast Kootenay School District is located in the Southeastern corner of British Columbia. The district is comprised of the communities of Elkford, Sparwood, Fernie, Jaffray/South Country and Cranbrook. Many of our communities balance their long-standing resource-based economies with a movement to tourism-based infrastructures. The five coal mines of the Elk Valley continue to be major employers within our region. In addition, Cranbrook serves as a regional centre, with the services that accompany, including a regional hospital, courthouse and government agencies.
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Welcome to Cranbrook
Our Story
The entire district is on the lands of the Ktunaxa peoples. There are two Ktunaxa bands within the area of the Southeast Kootenay School District. ?Aq’am is located near Cranbrook and Yaqit ʔa·knuqǂi’it (Tobacco Plains Band) is located in the South Country. The offices of the Ktunaxa Nation Council are also located in Cranbrook.
B.C.’s draft Framework for Enhancing Student Learning reflects a public commitment by education partners to work together to continuously improve student learning for each student, and to address long-standing differences in performance amongst particular groups of students, most notably Aboriginal students, children in care, and students with special needs. More specific details available at the Ministry of Education FESL Website
Purpose • Options • Fairness
Provincial Context
Engaging All Learners Goal To inspire all learning partners to create and contribute to an engaging, personalized, educational experience for our learners. Provide a safe, supportive environment that fosters continued growth in a rapidly changing environment Honor all pathways to graduation Acknowledge deeper learning opportunities based on individual strengths and abilities
WITHIN OUR BOARD'S STRATEGIC PLAN Our Board of Education has created a specific goal around engaging our learners in a personalized experience:
District Context
How are our Students Doing?
Our Completion Rate is one main indicators that helps show us how we are doing in comparison to other BC School Districts. It shows us our strengths in terms of graduation results and also helps shape our conversations about areas to improve on. See more School District 5 student data at the Ministry of Education data page.
Goal 1
To enable all students to graduate with a sense of belonging, purpose, choice and hope for their future.
To foster the growth and development of literate, numerate and socially responsible students in all areas of their education.
Goal 2
Oct 26 Board Office 4:00 - 6:00 pm Oct 27 Creston
Inquiry/Project/Problem Based Learning - SD5 Staff Quote "Engaging choice. When students feel like they have choice in their projects, they are intrinsically motivated. Last year, my class started a large project that they came up with as a group. At recess time, I had ten students begging to stay in at recess to continue their work."
How will we indicate success?
Respect • Vision • Fairness • Collaboration • Integrity • Inclusion
Less tasks for completion and more projects for an authentic audience - SD5 Parent Quote "When students have to present their learning in front of a "real" audience beyond their classmates, whether it is parents or community members, there is more of a willingness to continually make their final product better and better. It no longer is a task completion but a reflection of learning."
In order to maximize our success to reach our District goals, we have developed a number of District Initiatives to build capacity. The following pages are examples of system-wide focuses.
District Action Plan
Honoring All Pathways to Graduation
This year, we have created the Kootenay Learning Campus The Kootenay Learning Campus is a multi-site, multi-school model that incorporates Alternate, Distributed Learning, Continuing Education and Regular programming into a blended model for students. This allows students in all of our communities to enroll seamlessly in whichever school or program will best meet their needs and honour their paths to graduation.
We have embarked on a two year plan to help to inform all of our staff around Mental Health literacy and proper terminology as part of an overall initiative to de-stigmatize Mental Health disorders and to better meet the needs of our students. By end of the 2019/2020 school year, all of our school staffs will be in-serviced by in-house trainers on this important initiative. By June 2019, all of our educators responsible for this information in curriculum at the Grade 9 level will be in-serviced on programs to deliver this necessary program to their students.
Mental Health Literacy Initiative
Coding opportunities for Southeast Kootenay Students:
Integrated Technology
Hackergal: Girls gather annually to learn how to code using the python and collaboratively build a code to create an animated storyboard.
Hour of code: Opportunity for student throughout the district to experience coding and block coding.
Code-a-guy- Opportunity for boys in SD5 to learn and use micro:bits to code the robots they collaboratively built.
Tranformative Learning
Classrooms to Communities- KBEE has collaborated with C2C to promote Professional learning
Flexible and Creative Learning Spaces:
Helping Teachers- A model created to build capacity for staff in Southeast Kootenay. We have helping teachers, total 2.0 FTE, that work with teachers to purposefully infuse inquiry, technology, place based learning and thinking classroom philosophy.
Sustainable opportunities for students
Experiential/Inquiry opportunities
Transformative Learning
Physical Literacy "Physical literacy is the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life." - The International Physical Literacy Association, May 2014 With the support of funding from Columbia Basin Trust plans are in place to provide professional development in the area of Physical Literacy 101, Physical Literacy and Primary Math, Physical Literacy and Fundamental Movement Skills in the Early Years.
A Culture of Professional Learning
teachers engage in frequent, ongoing formal and informal conversations about pedagogy and teaching practice teachers work together to research, plan and design effective teaching strategies and programs teachers engage in professional dialogue to evaluate and modify teaching strategies and programs teachers engage in regular classroom observation and feedback and can articulate how changes in their practice impact student outcomes there is collective ownership of learning goals and outcomes, for both the individual and whole-school teachers undertake leadership roles that include initiating and leading professional discussions with colleagues to evaluate practice collaboration is prioritized and sufficient time is given to investing in the practice