A Sept. 20 meeting in 100 Mile House to review education requirements in School District #27 (SD27) attracted two parents, despite the significant curriculum changes being considered for kindergarten to Grade 12 students.
Assistant superintendent Harj Manhas says these include current Ministry of Education considerations for eliminating letter grades for K-9 students in the province, and instead, teachers will provide formal, written summative reporting at key times in the year.
Denise Balbirnie, whose children attend local schools, attended the Community Conversation about the Future of Graduation Requirements.
“They are looking for parent and teacher input on what programs we would want to see for the grad requirements. They are really interested in a flexible curriculum.”
The key elements include personalized learning, quality teaching and learning, flexibility and choice, and high standards and learning empowered by technology, she explains.
“The main issue I got out of the whole thing is the personalized learning. I think that’s kind of been at the lower levels, but they’d like to bring that up and make the grad requirements fit into the personalized learning.”
Balbirnie adds it seems to her the district is “scrambling to catch up” because it couldn’t ask teachers about these considerations last year when teachers were out on job action.
“It sounds like they’re trying to get this going really fast … that this is the number 1 [curriculum] concern and they want to get this figured out by December and then implemented by next year.”
She says the most important element of current education to preserve is strong numeracy and literacy, and that Manhas confirmed at the meeting this has been an ongoing comment from parents.
“Another really big thing that keeps coming up again and again is life skills – that the kids need to learn things that will help them pass the ‘safe walls of the school’,” says Balbirnie.
This means students need survival skills, she notes, such as how to avoid debt, for once they get “out in the real world” after graduation.
This should include financial aspects beyond budgeting, Balbirnie adds, as graduating youth need to take with them a good understanding of financial literacy, and hold sufficient skills to base decisions based on their employment income, investments and retirement.
“As far as I’m concerned, they should know how to budget when they’re in elementary school.”
Manhas notes the Ministry of Education is overhauling the K-12 curriculum to “focus less on facts, and more on big ideas” in its move toward personalized learning.
Parents can also review the PowerPoint presentation online at www.sd27.bc.ca, and then call him with their thoughts or ideas at 250-398-3810, or e-mail him at harjinder.manhas@sd27.bc.ca.
