Board News: Tuesday October 29, 2019
October 29, 2019
The Regular Meeting of the Langley Board of Education is streamed live beginning at 7:00pm. A link to the video is posted here in Board News.
Due to technical difficulties, the video started about five minutes into the meeting. Thank you for your cooperation.
Superintendent’s Report — District Literacy Goals
Assistant Superintendent Woody Bradford discussed some of the District’s goals around literacy and outlined how they’re in line with the District’s Strategic Plan, Action Plan, and Growth Plans. He mentioned how the goal is for students to be reading at grade level or to their Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Annual Instruction Plan (AIP). Director of Instruction Dawne Tomlinson talked about the strategies for success and the supports for change. An example is the Kindergarten Reading Readiness Program. She mentioned the importance for the District to know where students are in order to see growth. The District is seeing students entering Kindergarten and they are not ready. The District is working with community partners to try to bridge that gap. Woody Bradford showed the Board one of the resources available for teachers including the Literacy Guide. He also shared how schools are celebrating successes by sharing information with parents/families.
Assistant Superintendent Mal Gill outlined some of the data collected related to literacy. Although, he was hearing from staff that things are going well, the data indicated there wasn’t much growth. He went over some of the reading assessment data from 2017-2019. Although 15 percent of students were not meeting expectations, he highlighted this number was down from 21 percent from years before, which is something to celebrate. He concluded that there is room for growth. Assistant Superintendent Woody Bradford said academic needs are important but we need to meet social emotional needs. He told a story about a student who had many barriers in his life which made it challenging to excel in literacy. The school and staff recognized this and did their best to ‘wrap around’ this student in order to bring him up to speed with his peers. In the end, the student caught up, but a lot of the work was done to help meet academic needs but also a focus on social emotional support. He noted how creating a sense of belonging and purpose for students is crucial to enhancing student learning and literacy.
The Board approves the Superintendent’s Report as presented. The video above will begin on this agenda item.
Secretary Treasurer’s Report
The Board passed a motion related to parking requirements for RE Mountain Secondary School, and access to the Township of Langley’s park. The video above will begin on this agenda item.
Funding and Enrolment Update
Secretary-Treasurer Brian Iseli gave an update on funding and enrolment. He said the District’s funding is expected to increase $1.6 million to 185.6 million compared to $184.0 million in the budget. The main driver is due to an excess in student enrolment. The District is up 167.625 FTEs from budget in the regular student category. Special Needs students, English Language Learners (ELL) and International Student Program (ISP) and Alternate Education category is down slightly. He outlined all the changes in enrolment categorized by grade, programs, catchment. The District is seeing a decline in Walnut Grove, Brookswood and Poppy catchments.
The Board approves the Secretary-Treasurer’s Report as presented. The video above will begin on this agenda item.
New Business
Correspondence
The Board passed a motion requesting the Chair to write a letter to Minister Adrian Dix to take action on the issue of vaping. The video above will begin on this agenda item.