Blog - Page 22 of 34 - British Columbia School Trustees Association

Challenges in French Education Teacher Supply and Demand

In February of this year, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages released a study it had commissioned on supply and demand of French Second Language (FSL) teachers in Canada. The study was led by the Canadian Parents for French and conducted by researchers from across Canada, including Mimi Masson, Elizabeth Larson, Paule Desgroseilliers, Wendy Carr and Sharon Lapkin. The researchers were studying a persistent problem that is experienced across the country, and certainly in British Columbia: a high demand for French Second Language programs, and a short supply of qualified teachers.

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Get to Know the Indigenous Education Committee

The governance structure of the BCSTA includes several standing committees established to consider the organization’s business in specific areas and to provide recommendations to the Board of Directors. The committees also provide members with opportunities to engage directly in BCSTA work and to provide perspectives from the membership.

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Spotlight on Students… in Kelowna

Keneisha Charles is a grade 12 student from Rutland Secondary School in the Central Okanagan (SD 23). After learning about a battalion of black Canadian soldiers in the First World War, she decided to write a poem and essay about Pte. Aubrey Mitchell.

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Advocacy: Long-Range Facilities Plans

[Received April 12, 2019]

Minister Fleming to BC’s boards of education:

“I am pleased to bring your attention to the Ministry of Education’s new approach to long-term capital planning for boards of education. The Ministry’s guidelines for the development of Long-Range Facilities Plans (LRFP) for school districts have undergone a significant revision from the initial version that was produced in March 2017 under the previous administration.”

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BCSTA Working Groups: Progress Report

Following the BCSTA AGM in 2018, the Board of Directors approved a Strategic Plan, an element of which under the Advocacy goal is to: “Create specific working groups in support of achieving our advocacy goals and addressing the major identified themes (including consideration of involvement with partner groups and external organizations).”

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Student Success: Boards of Education Can Make a Difference

If you ask one hundred people “what is the purpose of public schooling?” you will likely get a range of responses. But, if you boil all those responses down, you will arrive at something to do with intellectual development, social-emotional development, and career development, the stated goals of education in British Columbia.

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A Children’s Health Hub in Gold River

Over the years 2013 to 2016, the Early Development Instrument (EDI) results in School District 84 (Vancouver Island West) showed that 53% of children in the community were vulnerable on one or more of the five scales (physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development, social competence, emotional maturity, and communication skills and general knowledge).

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Spotlight on Students: School Student Experiment Going Into Space

School District 69 was invited to participate in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program — and students from Ballenas Secondary responded. In fact, their experiment was judged to be worthy of being sent into space this summer! Their project, called Investigating the Growth Patterns of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) Sprouts in Microgravity: A Potential Nourishment for Future Manned Spaceflight is intended to inform further space flights about feeding astronauts.

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Advocacy: BCSTA Support of Funding Model Review

[Sent March 19, 2019]

President Swan to Minister Fleming:

“With Boards of Education providing their reviews of the independent review panel recommendations, and the working group review processes now underway, I wanted to reiterate BCSTA’s support for the review and redevelopment of the funding distribution model for K-12 public education.”

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BCSTA Leadership Series

In the book “Vanishing School Boards: Where School Boards Have Gone, Why We Need Them, and How We Can Bring Them Back” Patrick Rice asserts “school boards keep the public in public schools, have a positive effect on student achievement, function as trustees over district resources, and serve as advocates for public schools.” He backs up these claims with research and experience. Fortunately, in British Columbia, there is significant buy-in to this assertion, and the recent signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the BCSTA and the Ministry of Education is concrete acknowledgement of the value of boards in our province.

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Serving and Supporting BC’s Boards of Education