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Superintendents discuss education targets with board

A trio of South East Cornerstone Public School Division superintendents spent some time with the division’s board members on Feb. 13, relaying information regarding progress being made on a number of system-wide education targets.
Kevin Hengen, Shelley Sargent, Gord Husband
The speakers were, from left, Kevin Hengen, superintendent for the eastern area of the school division, Shelley Sargent, who handles the south service area, and Gord Husband, the superintendent for the west side.

A trio of South East Cornerstone Public School Division superintendents spent some time with the division’s board members on Feb. 13, relaying information regarding progress being made on a number of system-wide education targets.

Kevin Hengen, superintendent for the eastern area of the wide-spread school division, led off, followed by Gord Husband, the superintendent for the west side, while Shelley Sargent who handles the south service area, brought the session to a conclusion.

The division uses a vast amount of information gathered to measure, monitor and report continuous improvements made within the system, said Lynn Little, the director of education who introduced the trio by outlining the processes used to gather data and then disseminate it.

“Attendance monitoring, surveys and behaviour screenings for well-being initiatives and thought and idea exchanges at regional meetings are the three areas that are dealt with for this particular system goal. Overall outcomes can be shared by teachers, students and administration as well as the governance body, the board," Lynn said.

She noted that one new piece of data gathering had been added for Grades 4, 7 and 9 with regards to writing assessments and that a mathematics element will be coming soon.

Hengen focused his presentation on the attendance monitoring and intervention deployed by Cornerstone, noting there was a checklist. He displayed the results of that checklist through a pie chart. Students who are chronically absent or those who have a severe record of absenteeism are charted with intervention processes initiated when required.

“These are important pieces,” he said, referring to the checklists and monitoring processes. A school sample means you can dig into individual classrooms and even period by period,” Hengen said.

Daily updates mean those who need to know, are given “a live database,” he added. “It’s all aimed to help support the kids.”

If intervention is seen to be required, parents or guardians are contacted and sometimes a “nudge letter,” is written as a reminder, all with the understanding that it is being done to support and encourage students. He noted that outside aid agencies and personnel are brought into the process if required.

A watch list has been implemented so that administrators can view trends in attendance.

Husband took the board members on a brief journey through school surveys that are conducted to gain more appreciation of behaviours, student well-being and interventions, when needed.

He pointed out data collection is a province-wide mandate and is done every three years and in recent years, results have been forwarded to the Mental Health agencies.

“We are excited about that because we can address the needs and that’s a powerful move,” Husband said in reference to the support that can be supplied for better social and emotional outcomes.

One school survey is designed for feedback from students in Grades 4 to 8 that measures 31 indicators based on recent research on school and classroom effectiveness.

A second survey covers Grades 9 through 12 and measures 37 indicators. The surveys cover social, emotional and academic outcomes and consist of 34 to 73 questions.

Husband noted the target is to bring all students to a point where they grasp a positive sense of belonging, relationships and school behaviour, lowering anxiety and depression levels and helping them gain positive self-esteem.

Through means of graphs and charts, Husband showed the board members an increasingly positive (upward) trend in the past three surveys.

Confidential information gathered provides snapshots for schools that can be used by staff to initiate school projects and events to address needs. It is also used to meet the needs of individual students, when required.

“At about 70 per cent, we’re generally above the Canadian medium, but there is always the desire to do better,” Husband added. “We can all do better when we are engaged and we all need that engagement. We all need positive peer relationships and when it comes to schools, if you have an advocate at school, that’s best.”

There can be such things as homeroom discussions about anxiety and its repercussions and how to best manage it and what students can do to help themselves, Husband said.

In her segment of the presentation, Sargent focused on thought exchanges, data gathering and recent outcomes.

“SCCs (school community councils) share at workshops, they discuss what they want and need and what they would like to take to regional workshops,” Sargent said.

Gathering the most preferred thoughts is done on a one to five star basis, with the original workshop participants weighing the importance of each particular topic on a scale of one to five.

“We find the top 10 and use them at regional workshops,” she said.

Those topics could range from supporting student mental health to school-based projects and initiatives and the desire to hear from other councils what their thoughts might be on any particular subject.

Sargent said the regional workshops usually find the participants breaking into smaller discussion groups followed by a general session where results are shared. As an example, she suggested that a SCC group discussing the needs and wants of the Weyburn Comprehensive School might want to hear from the group that talked about similar topics for the Estevan Comprehensive School.

The recent thought exchange attracted 69 SCC participants who shared 41 general thoughts and issued 657 stars that outlined degrees of importance.

Elwood White, the trustee for Subdivision 6, which includes Ogema, Pangman, Oungre  and other communities said the workshop he attended recently “was one of the best I’ve witnessed.”

Vice-chairwoman Carol Flynn, the trustee for the northeast Subdivision 1, said, “The one I attended, I saw the room was packed.”

The three presenters fielded a number of questions from the board members as part of the process.