My Evaluation

Each year the Board of Trustees for St. Paul Education takes time to evaluate itself in its function as a board. And every three years, the voters have a chance to evaluate their trustees.

With the next municipal and school board elections right around the corner, I thought it would prudent for me to provide you, my electorate, with evidence on what I have accomplished as a trustee in my first term over the past three years.

1. Students are the number one priority

The only employee that is directly hired by the board is the Superintendent. I had the opportunity to take part in the hiring of a new Superintendent in my first term, and I believe our board chose a Superintendent who has been making meaningful changes within our school division for the betterment of all students. Superintendent Glen Brodziak and his administrative team are transforming this division into one that focuses on student achievement at all levels and one that continues to build quality relationships with all education stakeholders.

2. Communications and Community Engagement

As a former journalist and a former assistant to MLA Ray Danyluk, I understand and have taken direct action in strengthening communication at all levels. As part of the trustee Communications Committee, I have been directly involved in the following new initiatives over the past three years:

- -Monthly Ask a School Trustee column in local newspapers, school newsletters and website

- Division picture calendar distributed to each family which highlights all of our schools and relevant reference information

- Numerous Question and Answer documents on “hot topic” items

- Annual Council of School Council meetings where parent councils from across the division met to provide input into board directions

- A Communications Plan which highlights all of the internal and external communication directives within the division

- “How was school today?” document distributed to each family, highlighting the division’s goals

Many of these initiatives are on the division website.

3. St. Paul Solution

The St. Paul Solution involved the building of a new Glen Avon School with renovations to the Regional High School Career and Technology suites (ie. shop, cosmetology, home economics) and complete renovations to St. Paul Elementary and Racette Schools. All of the projects except Racette School have been completed to date and the Racette School modernization was announced in 2008. However, when the economy turned sour, the provincial government put the funding for Racette on hold. As the modernization representative for both St. Paul Elementary and Racette, I have met with the Education Minister and the local MLA a number of times. St. Paul Elementary was completed while I was a trustee and I am still hanging on to my hard hat with the hopes that Racette will be completed within my next term, should I be re-elected.

4. Policy revision

As part of the Policy Committee, I encouraged the board to undertake a complete review of its policies, since many of them were outdated. I can say that our policies have all been revamped and separated into two distinct “sandboxes.” Anything that is the board’s responsibility is now in the Board Policy Handbook and anything that is the Superintendent’s responsibility is in the Administrative Procedures Handbook. Both of these documents can be viewed on our website.

5. Upholding our religious, cultural and linguistic differences under one regionalized school division

We are a unique board in this province, and most likely in all of Canada, in that we have separate and public schools under board. Although this special status has placed us under the microscope a few times, I believe that the majority of our constituents are in support of our current structure and as a member of the board, I will continue to remain in communication with the stakeholders of our Public Catholic Schools.

On a personal note, I was confirmed into the Roman Catholic Church this past Easter and truly believe that it is important to have Catholic representation on this unique board.

I believe in this school division. I believe in our students. And I believe that I can continue to make difference as a trustee for St. Paul Education.

Election day is October 18. Let your voice be heard!

Jamie Oliver and Differentiated Instruction

I love Jamie Oliver! I have followed his career since his early days on “The Naked Chef.” What I love most about him is his unrelenting spirit to make a positive difference in people’s lives. Watching his most recent crusade against unhealthy eating in his “Food Revolution,” reminded me why I became a school trustee. I watched Jaimie take on his home country in England in his attempt to bring healthier food into schools and into homes. And now he is bringing his revolution to America. Rick Wormeli is a lot like Jamie Oliver. Mr. Wormeli may not be as well known as Mr. Oliver, but Mr. Wormeli does for education what Mr. Oliver does for food.

All of our teachers had the opportunity to see Rick Wormeli during a special division Professional Development (PD) day on March 22. The board of trustees and central office administration felt it was important for our staff to see Mr. Wormeli’s presentation because he provides some very useful tools in the area of student assessment (ie. marking and grading student learning).

Mr. Wormeli is a lot like Mr. Oliver because he travels around the world 42 out of 52 weeks of the year trying to make a difference. Mr. Wormeli has been tied to the terminology, in the education world, of Differentiated Instruction (DI). Now I am not an expert on DI and I do not have an education degree, but from what I have learned about DI is that every student learns differently and therefore, each student may need different tools in order to learn. No, this does not mean a different lesson plan for each child in a teacher’s classroom. It means we are all different and a one-size-fits-all approach to learning is not realistic.

For me to assume that teachers do not already know this is ignorant of me. Of course teachers realize that each student in their class learns differently. What Mr. Wormeli made clear to me during our March 22^nd session was that our school systems are largely based on a factory model where we provide the same set of instruction, the same set of tests and churn out students at the end of the year. Our teachers have had to work within this model and find ways to adapt their teaching methods for their classes of diverse students. Mr. Wormeli’s concepts provided some extra tools for our teachers to try. What he did not say and what we do not expect is for our teachers to throw out everything they have learned over their years of teaching and start from scratch.

Professional development is meant to add to our knowledge base, not for us to take a total u-turn. Every profession has its own version of professional development. From doctors and dentists to plumbers and mechanics, we all need professional development in order to keep up with our changing times. But what Jaimie Oliver has so clearly demonstrated is that we are creatures of habit and we don’t like change. For us to grasp some of these new concepts in a practical sense may be difficult at first. But our teachers are not in this alone.

Not only do our teachers have their fellow colleagues to lean on, but they also have their administrators and their trustees back them up. Yes, we are all part of one team - a team that wants to see each and every child in our division succeed. There may be some nay-sayers out there who are going to critique and cut down everything we are trying to achieve within our school division. But the main thing I would like everyone to remember is that we all want our children to GET IT. We want our students to understand the material they are being taught so that when they graduate from our division, they will have a set of skills that will triumph within our ever-changing and competitive, global economy.

We do not expect a revolution, but we do want to start a conversation.

A Good News Story

Too often, we are confronted by stories of failure, destruction and death in the news. Well, as a school trustee, I feel it is time to toot our horn and celebrate some of the successes within our schools.

One project that comes to mind is one-to-one computing project that is taking place in the Ashmont Elementary Community School. We were fortunate to receive the resources as part of a pilot project within the province. As you can see from this video, these students are truly engaged.

This is just one of the many success stories taking place across our division. Enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/8541617