The board of trustees — with the exception of board chair Eve Flynn — made good on its promise to boycott the Nov. 23 visit by Minister of Education Mike Bernier, a decision designed to protest the government’s failure to provide “adequate, stable and predictable” funding for public school education.
Noting Bernier’s revised itinerary for the visit, which originally had called for a sit-down meeting with the board, Trustee Barry Kurland said he had no regrets for his motion to boycott.
“The upshot is, the minister is going to visit three schools in our district, instead of one,” Kurland said. “Any minister attending our schools to see the hard work everyone there is doing can only help raise his or her awareness. These people need to be celebrated.”
* Report cards on way out*
Superintendent Koop unveiled a draft policy statement on changes to communicating student learning, which is meant to complement the province-wide curriculum redesign now under way in public schools.
The policy will outline the ways learning progress will be shared with parents, families and students and entirely revamp the report card system currently in place.
In a slideshow presented to the board, assistant superintendent Gillian Wilson showed examples of student report cards from the 1950s, 1960s, 1990s and the present day, noting there has been little change even with the move from hand-written reports to computerized versions.
“One of our missions is to inspire passion for learning,” Wilson said. “Report cards are not inspiring passion.”
