Well, school is back in session, and the Board is also at work.

As most people know, Superintendent Dave Hutchinson is no longer with the District. We thank him for his service. As the Board goes about posting for a new person to fill his role, Deputy Superintendent John Blain has stepped up to serve as Acting Superintendent. We will be leaving the Deputy position vacant. Senior management is working with Mr Blain to determine how to ensure needed supervisory/management work gets done.

Each of our Trustees, with the exception of the Board Chair and Board Vice Chair, are assigned to one of five zones. That means that we are the link between our zone and the board itself. Although we ultimately have to make decisions based on the welfare of the School District as a whole, we also have a responsibility to help our zone schools bring forward their concerns & points of view. That goes along with the role of school trustees as stated here. I have been assigned to the NDSS zone, along with Trustee Jamie Brennan. Because this zone encompasses so many programs and schools, we have two trustees representing it. In the zone we share is the high school, and I’ll also be the link for Learning Alternatives/VAST, the Career & Technical Centre, Learn @ Home K-7 and three elementary schools: Pauline Haarer & Quarterway, which are both French Immersion schools, as well as Fairview, which is a community school. I met with NDSS principal Tim Davie Tuesday evening, before we attended the PAC meeting. I was really excited about the programs he described, and even more excited when, the next day, I went on a tour of the school and saw these initiatives in action. I haven’t had an opportunity to visit the elementary schools or see Learn @ Home headquarters yet. As I learn more about the schools, I’ll blog the various programs.

Wednesday was an amazing day. Before our regularly scheduled we met with Learning Services and had an orientation to their work. Then, at Education Committee, we had two excellent presentations about assessment,  one from the Nanaimo District Teacher’s Association (NDTA) and one from management. It seems that there is some tension regarding our policy around assessment. This policy debate is specifically around how teachers assess where students are at academically at the beginning of the year. Should we mandate which assessment tools teachers use? If we don’t/shouldn’t, how do we have some degree of certainty that there is consistency in how students are assessed? In some areas of the district, the population can be transitory. We want the new teacher to be able to look at past assessments and know in which areas a new student excels in and which are areas of difficulty.

The NDTA asked us to suspend the policy and after very interesting debate, the committee recommended that we wait and give the District Assessment Committee meet again and try to address the concerns. At first, I was going to move a motion supporting their requests. Trustee Higginson, however, suggested a compromise that I ultimately realized was likely more effective – to request that the parties work together, via the District Assessment Committee, to discuss concerns and create a report for the April Education Committee meeting. The thinking is that overall, there is enough agreement that the parties can come up with a procedural change that will address union concerns. If that happens, there is no need to amend the policy. If they can’t agree, then in April we will look at the issue of revising the policy.

The other hot topic of the night was the Foundation Skills Assessment testing (FSAs). The union wants parents to maintain autonomy in deciding whether they believe there is value in their child taking the test. By that, they mean that should a parent send in the form saying they are excusing their child from the test, that there be no call made to the parent questioning them on their choice. The Education Committee requested that Acting Superintendent Blain determine whether there is anything in legislation requiring principals to make these calls. If there isn’t, we are going to share information with the parents from both sides & ensure that they know they will be respected in their choices around participation in the tests.

This blog post as gotten long. Assessment and standardized testing are both important issues. I’ll try to write separate posts on each of them soon, where I’ll share more of my personal thoughts. In the meantime, please tell me what YOU think!