The draft of next year’s school calendar has been posted to the Vernon School District web site and now it’s time for members of the public to have their say.
The District Calendar Committee met earlier this month to discuss the 2016/17 school calendar and to make recommendations to the board of education.
At Wednesday’s district board meeting, director of instruction and committee chairperson Linda Spiller presented the proposed draft to trustees.
“The school calendar regulation given from the ministry is clear in what the intention was, to create a schedule that allows for implementation of the curriculum document,” she said.
In addition to outlining the two weeks of spring vacation and the two weeks of Christmas vacation, the calendar reflects the non-instructional days needed for teachers to become familiar with the new curriculum introduced by the Ministry of Education.
“And so we were given the opportunity to present that as one non-instructional day or one more non-instructional day as long as it totals 10 hours for the calendar 2016/17 as well as 2017/18, so they’ve given a fair bit of flexibility in how that could be proposed,” said Spiller.
The 2016/17 calendar includes 187 days in session, 179 of those are days of instruction,
“We would have eight non-instructional days built in based on the recommendations from the ministry to include additional hours of non-instructional time for curriculum implementation,” said Spiller.
The ministry requirements of instructional hours for each grade are listed as 848 hours for kindergarten, 873 for students in Grades 1 to 7 and 947 for Grades 8 to 12.
“We have that gradual entry in September for kindergarten.”
The committee is made up of the district’s partner groups and includes Rod Pleasance, DPAC; Robyn Ladner and Lisa LaBoucane, Vernon Teachers’ Association; Deb Cullum, Vernon Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Association; Ava Cornell and Brianna Buksa with Student Voice.
The committee has made a number of recommendations to the board. Through discussion with all of those at the table, it was suggested that school begins Tuesday, Sept. 6, with a curriculum implementation day planned for Sept. 16.
“We’d have a curriculum implementation day if all of the staffing is in place and then they would have their first school-based pro d day at the end of the month on September 30.”
A provincial learning specialist day is scheduled for Oct. 21, a school-based professional development day Nov. 14, with the next curriculum implementation day Feb. 14. Additional non-instructional days include the Okanagan zone conference day Feb. 24, school-based pro d May 19 and an administrative day June 30.
“There were some questions at the table about what other districts are doing. The Central Okanagan, Shuswap and Kamloops all have a two-week winter vacation December 19 to January 3, and the Central Okanagan and Shuswap have the two-week spring break March 20 to 31,” said Spiller. “So what we would recommend is that we align with other districts so it’s just convenient for families taking vacations and making it work.”
Trustees have approved the 2016/17 draft calendar, which has now been posted to the district’s web site at www.sd22.bc.ca and will remain up for 30 days to solicit feedback.
The board must submit the calendar to the ministry for approval by March 31. If the calendar is found to be non-compliant, the ministry has 30 days from the date of receipt to make amendments.
