Board News: Tuesday, October 24, 2017
October 25, 2017
Presentation: Regional Emergency Communication Operations Plan
Langley School District Communications Manager Ken Hoff and regional Emergency Program Coordinator Ginger Sherlock addressed the Board and updated them on recent completion of the Emergency Communications Plan annex to the comprehensive Langley Emergency Response Plan. Over the last year information officers from the City of Langley, the Township of Langley, Langley School District and local RCMP and Fire, have been meeting monthly to prepare emergency messaging for use in case of a regional disaster. This collaborative effort has resulted in a valuable document that is ‘pre-prepared’ in the event of an emergency. The Hazard, Risk and Vulnerability Analysis for the region quite literally outlines the potential crisis situations the Langley region may experience and the Information Officers have prepared information that may be shared in each of these scenarios.
Superintendent’s Reports
Framework for Enhanced Student Learning and Quality Learning
Superintendent Gord Stewart introduced Dawne Tomlinson, Director of Instruction, Brenda Barlow, District Teacher in charge of the Mentorship Program, and Kendall Sewell, a teacher and recent participant in the mentorship program. The Framework for Enhanced Student Learning resides on the district website and throughout the year Mr. Stewart has referred to the interactive document as it has been updated. In the quadrant labelled Connected and Collaborative the District Teacher Mentorship Program is highlighted. During the last year the district has hired an additional 270 teachers and, in order to attract and retain staff, the district has remained committed to providing comprehensive support to meet the needs of those joining the district. In addition, Director of HR Barry Bunyan provided an overview of the supports for new hires. The Framework for Enhanced Student Learning may be found here.
Classroom Enhancement Fund Staffing Update
Superintendent Gord Stewart introduced Director of HR Barry Bunyan to provide the Board an update on staffing under the Classroom Enhancement Fund. Since November 2016 when the Supreme Court of Canada made a final decision on the 14-year legal battle between the BCTF and the BC Government, the district has had to restore local contract language around class size and composition. The Classroom Enhancement Fund was put in place to mitigate the effects of this decision.Due to the strict limits placed on class sizes and number of designated students, all districts in the province of BC were required by the Government of British Columbia and BCPSEA to make all “best efforts” to fully restore the contractual language. This requires districts to recruit and hire teachers at a level unseen previously in our province.
Secretary Treasurer’s Reports
Action Item: Policy No. 1204 – Bylaws of the Board
The Board of Education carried a motion to adopt the amendments to Policy No. 1204 – Bylaws of the Board. The revisions are related to the changes required to change the Education Committee to a Committee of the Whole.
Action Item: Revised Board Meeting Schedule 2017-2018
The Board passed a motion to revise Policy No. 1204 – Bylaws of the Board and, as a result, some minor changes were needed to the Board Meeting Schedule. The revised schedule was approved.
Information Item: Enrolment Report – Funding and Headcount Update
Secretary Treasurer Brian Iseli presented the full time equivalents (FTE) to the Board of Education collected as of September 30, 2017. For details, the charts in the presentation to the left may be helpful. In short, at this time, the district is up a little over 207 FTEs though this may change in the coming months. With the increase in FTEs comes an increase in funding that will be reflected in the Amended Budget when it is brought before the Board. To break down the increased enrolment, 91 students over projected were added to middle schools and 159 over projections were added to other streams.