April 17, 2015
Dear Parents,
Principal’s Report to Elboya School Council, April 15, 2015
We need your cooperation—A missing child is EXTREMELY SERIOUS
In the past two weeks, there have been six occasions when a child has been reported missing. In four cases, a lack of family communication led to a child going or not going home with a parent or relative or nanny that other family members were not informed of. A fifth case occurred when the school was not informed that a student would not be riding the bus. That bus was held at the school for an extra 10 minutes while school staff searched for the student in question. All of these children were under 12. The sixth case happened today and involved an older student who left school without signing out and parents did not call the school when the child arrived home. By the time we located the student, we had searched the school, talked to numerous students and staff, searched the grounds, the neighbouring park, the local shopping centre, called another school, the Area Office, etc.
When a child is reported missing, staff at the school have to follow the Missing Child Protocol which among other things involves calling police within 5-10 minutes of a child being reported missing. Each report of a missing child causes great anxiety, worry and alarm for children, parents, relatives and school staff. We need your help in reducing false alarms.
Please communicate in the family and with the school if there is a change in routine. Have a set place to meet your child after school and inform the school if your child is not taking the school bus. Thank you.
Next Year
The Calgary Board of Education’s projections for Elboya School for 2015-16 are for 626 students in the following grades:
K-31, Grade 1-39, Grade 2-51, Grade 3-53, Grade 4-38
Grade 5-81, Grade 6-91, Grade 7-99, Grade 8-70, Grade 9-73
We currently have 625 students registered for 2015-16.
At this point we are waiting for funds/student (or Resource Allocation Method) to be assigned to the school so that we can begin the staffing and budgeting process for 2015-16. I anticipate receiving this information on April 24th. The election has affected the budget process and the
province will not finalize their budget until mid to late June. Until the RAM is distributed, I will not know of potential effects on staff and students at Elboya School.
The recent professional day, April 6th was devoted to planning for next year including looking at potential classes, activities, etc. We cannot go much further with our planning until we know exactly how much money and therefore teachers and support staff we will have. For your information, Elboya currently has 31 teaching staff, the equivalent of 3 full time (4 people) Support Staff and just under the equivalent of 2 full time (6 people) Lunchroom positions. As parents know, the Lunchroom program is funded directly through parent fees though the school subsidizes 25% of the Lunchroom salaries.
Initial information was given today at the CBE System Leadership Meeting though the motion that was passed unanimously by the Trustees for the Calgary Board of Education could affect the budget shortfall. The funding shortfall for CBE is $29 million dollars. Trustees have agreed to use $18 million from Reserve funds to reduce the impact of this year’s cutbacks, which would reduce cutbacks to $11. However, to use these funds will require the approval of the Minister of Education and at the moment, there is not one. Boards were instructed not to use reserve funds for the 2015-16 school year. Final approval will be left till after the election is over. Further information about the CBE budget may be found at
http://www.cbe.ab.ca/about-us/budget-andfinance/Pages/default.aspx
There is an opportunity for parents to give feedback about the budget. It is very important that parents consider the type of feedback they would like to give. Questions about the funding of education should be directed to current election candidates. Comments about how CBE should use the funds that they will receive should go into the feedback form located at
http://www.cbe.ab.ca/about-us/budget-and-finance/Pages/budget-feedback-form.aspx
Thank you for taking the time to talk about education and its funding with your family, relatives, friends and potential MLAs.
Recent School Activities
The Grade 9 Quebec fieldtrip last week was a great success and everyone enjoyed themselves very much. During the 2015-16 school year, the Grade 9 Quebec fieldtrip will be in late October or early November. We are in the initial stages of preparing for that fieldtrip
Aggie Days was very popular with grades 1 and 2. Students had a great time, enjoyed the animals and returned with several freebies that they enjoyed greatly.
Grade 4 students went to the Telus Spark Science Centre on April 14, 2015.
Kindergarten students have been going to the nearby Maison for music workshops and both the seniors and the students have equally enjoyed the experience.
With the improvement in the weather, there are a number of fieldtrips coming before the end of the school year.
April activities are sponsored by Ms. Hardacre’s Grade 1 class, Mme. Plesu’s Grade 5-6 Homeroom and Mme. Gagne’s Grade 7-9 Homeroom. Trashless Tuesdays began on April 7th and students are asked to take home any thing that they bring to school for lunch—garbage, boxes or cans recycling, etc. Crazy Hair day was enjoyed by many students today. Upcoming is Earth Day on April 22nd. All staff and students will be asked to have a Technology free school day—with no lights, cell phones, laptops, SMARTboards, etc. Students from the sponsoring classes would like to challenge parents and families to all observe Earth Day next Wednesday.
Mr. Coward’s Yearbook option also sponsored an Easter Egg Hunt earlier in the month. Those who found the drawings of baby chicks enjoyed chocolate eggs.
Elboya School Council will be sponsoring a dance for families of students in Kindergarten through Grade 4 on Thursday, April 23. Those who attend always enjoy this activity. This is the only dance for the young grades and we hope families will attend.
The Minister of Education, Gordon Dirks, was scheduled to visit Elboya School on April 24th, but his office, due to the election, has cancelled that event. Perhaps the new Minister of Education will be able to visit later in the school year.
Technology including wireless
Thanks to funding by the Elboya School Fundraising Society, wireless technology will soon be more available at Elboya School. Contractors are beginning their work this week. Each class will have its own wireless access point and we hope that difficulties logging on will be significantly reduced.
I have recently attended a couple of session from an industry expert about an upgrade for wireless technology within the Calgary Board of Education. With additional wireless access in the school, there will be an upgrade of the access points and controllers that are part of the wireless system. It was recommended that we make some changes at Elboya in order to optimize and safeguard our wireless access. For example, microwaves will be restricted to the cafeteria and staffroom. We are not using walkie talkies and will limit the use of wireless microphones. Streaming of videos etc. will be via hard wiring. Every class has 4-8 ports for hard wiring computers and these need to be used more effectively. We will also be looking carefully at other wireless devices in the school to ensure that there is no interference with the student wireless access.
It was also recommended that students only bring 1 device to class—a tablet or a laptop, but not cell phones. At the moment, every electronic device that comes into the building connects to the school’s wireless. This includes every cell phone belonging to students, parents, staff, tradespeople and visitors. This chatter limits wireless access for students to use for educational purposes.
As we have and are spending a considerable amount of money so that students can have access through wireless we need to do everything we can to optimize this access.
For the information of parents, we currently have 5 carts of 25-27 computers in the following locations—Elementary wing (Rooms 1-9), Elementary West (rooms 10-12), Main Floor (rooms 13-18), Junior High floor (rooms 21-27) Library (available for all classes). There is also a class set of ipods that are used primarily by grades 3-6 and 10 ipads. We will be adding some new computers for next year. Over the past three years we have upgraded all of our computers, moved to a Mac platform, purchased a new Mac server and discarded all old equipment. We are also in the process of adding 3 new projectors, had one SMARTboard replaced and will have another replaced in the near future. This is the best access and most effectively functioning network that we have ever had. It has been a cooperative effort from the Elboya School Fundraising Society, the Calgary Board of Education’s Evergreening process and Elboya School. With the increased wireless access we will be in an excellent place for technology use and support. In the future, students bringing their own device to school will be much more important and fortunately the price of a tablet is within the reach of almost everyone. I would like to thank all who have contributed in any way to us reaching this point.
Painting in the school was completed as of Monday, April 13th. The school looks much better. All of the public areas of the school were painted and it was a much-needed upgrade. We have also been fortunate to have 4 classrooms painted in the past couple of years. Only 23 more to go!
Lunchroom
As Grade 1-6 students have undoubtedly told their parents, we have been working on a new arrangement for lunch and it will be employed from this point on. Students are assigned to eat lunch in a specific classroom and a lunchroom supervisor is in each classroom to supervise the students. Students eat with others in their same grade, except for grades 5 and 6 who eat together. This new arrangement is working well.
Sincerely,
Linda Davis, Principal
Drama News – S. Park
The Drama show, "THIS IS A TEST" by Stephen Gregg and "HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL WITHOUT REALLY TRYING" by Jonathan Rand is fast approaching! The show dates are Wednesday April 29th and Thursday April 30th at 7:00. Come out and see a very talented group of twenty-six student actors! The shows depict the life of a student with some very comical twists with students showing their intelligence and resourcefulness. Costs for tickets are $4.00 for children ages 8 and up, $8.00 for adults and $18.00 for families. No children under 8 allowed for content reasons. Thank-you.
Human Sexuality – M. Simpson
Reminder to return Human Sexuality permission forms as soon as possible. There will be an information meeting for this unit on April 21 from 3:30-5:00 in the Drama Room (Room 13).
P.E – T. James
EOE Reminder to return wall climbing forms. Track and Field tryouts will continue next week. Check the schedule beside PE office for times.
Parent information meeting will be held on April 21 from 3:30 - 5:00 in Drama room.
Badminton
Good Luck to all athletes!
Important Dates
April 20th Gr 9 Badminton Tournament @ Western Canada High School
April 21st Gr 8 Badminton Tournament @ Western Canada High School
Trashless Tuesday
April 22nd Gr 6/7 Badminton Tournament @ Western Canada High School
Earth Day
April 23rd Insta-Spring Dance for K-4 students and families 5:00 pm – 7:00
April 22nd – April 24th Band Fieldtrip to Whistler
April 25th & 26th Young Writers
Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheryl
