BSD embraces Continuous Improvement

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This article was published 22/03/2017 (3206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon School Division is moving full steam ahead with its Continuous Improvement Plan, with senior administration rolling out the plan’s top priorities and the board approving a change to the school calendar to better align with it.

It was a packed house for Monday night’s school board meeting as trustees got their first glimpse of the plan and weighed the pros and cons of changing the calendar from the traditional eight professional development days to five full days and six half-days.

BSD put out more than 7,000 emails and 2,000 phone calls to parents seeking input — only receiving a 9.74 per cent response rate.

Despite 46 per cent of those responders saying it would have a high impact on their family and offered low support for the new calendar, trustees could not overlook the education potential and the significant savings — more than $80,000 — the calendar change offered.

BSD Supt. Marc Casavant presented the plan again on Tuesday morning, demonstrating how much work has gone into it and how much work lies ahead.

“When we first started, (the team) asked: ‘How are we going to do this?’” Casavant said. “Through one voice and the work of a team … This is a group of people committed to the advancement of education.”

Casavant said the plan should thrive and benefit the division in the face of provincial changes to the kindergarten to Grade 3 smaller class size initiative.

“I think by having good plans in place, we’re going to able to deal with a fair bit of adversity that comes our way,” Casavant said. “Failing to plan is planning to fail … we have a very strong plan … it does give us flexibility to meet the needs of learners as we best see fit.”

After consulting with students, staff, board members, the province and the community, a team of principals and division members assembled five priorities, including tackling literacy and numeracy improvement within BSD as well as closing the gaps for indigenous and English as an additional language students.

“At one time, we had as many as 14 or 15 priorities, and when we continued to work them through and decipher which ones would have the biggest impact, we landed on these five,” Casavant said.

The priorities going forward focus on best practices, early learning, the relationship between families and their schools, responding to student diversity and students’ sense of belonging.

The plan is expected to take five to seven years to be fully implemented, being revisited on an annual basis, Casavant said, adding that in order to ensure success for each priority the division would only tackle two — responding to student diversity and best practices — starting in September.

“Instead of going a mile wide and an inch deep, we should in fact go an inch wide and a mile deep … start with just two priorities, get good at two things and have more of a collective focus,” said Marnie Wilson, research assessment and evaluation specialist with BSD. “We also want to ensure that this continues to be a data informed plan, so not just using data to inform and create our plan, but also to measure our progress along the way.”

After taking a closer look at diversity in a typical classroom in BSD, Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School principal Chad Cobbe said it was clear response to diversity was needed.

“There is a new level of reality that we’re dealing with in our school division with regard to the range of learning needs that our students come to us with every day … we are even more compelled to meet those needs as best as we can,” Cobbe said.

The team will engage in a system wide approach in building common understandings of and define roles and responsibilities.

“The change in the PD calendar will be a key factor in this going forward,” Cobbe said.

Focusing on best practices goes hand in hand in the division’s response to diversity, ensuring any improvements going forward are consistent across all schools in the division, said Earl Oxford School principal Brad Twordik.

“What we currently have is an inconsistent implementation of best practices in literacy and numeracy … there was a lack of focus of the priorities,” Twordik said. “Hopefully with the new plan that’s being put forward today, that will be eliminated.”

Future initiatives will include expanding the Welcome to Kindergarten plan, strengthening partnerships with early learning centres, building partnerships with community groups to support positive interactions with vulnerable families, organizing an indigenous Leadership Summit for students and developing an indigenous Parent Outreach Program at each school.

“You can start to get a sense of the work that’s gone into (the Continuous Improvement Plan) and the work that lies ahead,” Casavant said. “We feel that when we’re done, we’re going to be doing a better job.”

» edebooy@brandonsun.com

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SIDEBAR: Students say …

Consultations with students provided valuable feedback in shaping the Continuous Improvement Plan, said BSD Supt. Marc Casavant.

“Students are telling us this is what they need from us,” Casavant said. “We need to keep these statements in the forefront of our minds as we continue.”

Students said:

• I need my education to be practical and relevant.

• I need my education to be personalized and engaging.

• I need opportunities to develop general skills, such as communication and problem-solving.

• I need ample encouragement and support from teachers and parents.

• I recognize the importance of developing into a respectful, responsible and determined citizen.

» The Brandon Sun