superintendent’s memo 31st - nov 3rd 2017.pdf · superintendent continued….. 2 go back ... the...
TRANSCRIPT
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Superintendent ..................... 2
Extras .................................... 2
Human Resources ................. 3
Technology ............................ 4
Transportation …….……………5
Curriculum ............................ 6
Around BTPS......................7-15
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BUFFALO TRAIL PUBLIC SCHOOLS
1041 10A Street
Wainwright, AB T9W 2R4
P: 780.842.6144
F: 780.842.3255
www.btps.ca
Twitter: BTPS#28
Superintendent’s Memo
For the Week of October 30th - November 3rd, 2017
FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT...
Email: [email protected]
Question of the week, Page 4
Win a great prize!
This week marks the last week of October. The first two months of
the 2017-2018 have gone by very quickly. We have already had a
number of important events in BTPS.
Last week we had the first meeting of our new Board of Trustees.
The new slate of trustees includes:
AREA TRUSTEE
County of Minburn No. 27 Rose Gorniak (Delnorte, Mannville, Percy Lake Colony, Creighton Colony) Wainwright School Division Marie Isaman No. 32 Electoral Subdivision #1 (WES & WHS)
Electoral Subdivision #2 Stephanie Spornitz(Edgerton, Chauvin, Ribstone Colony, Autumn Leaf) Electoral Subdivision # 3 Sheldon Archibald(Irma, Holt Colony) The County of Vermilion River No. 24 Bruce Marriott Electoral Subdivision #1 (JR Robson, VES, VOS) Electoral Subdivision #2 Jim King (Rural Vermilion, JR Robson, VES, VOS ) Electoral Subdivision #3 Darcy Eddleston (KES, KHS, EH Walter) Electoral Subdivision #4 Lanie Parr (Dewberry, Marwayne, Students Online, Clandonald, South Ferriby Colony) Provost School Division No. 33 Barry Livingston(Provost, Amisk, Hughenden, Highland View Colony, Rosewood Colony)
MISSION: Buffalo Trail Public Schools is committed to maximizing student learning,
in a safe and caring environment, supported by a highly effective team.
SUPERINTENDENT CONTINUED…..
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L-R (Back) Barry Livingston, Sheldon Archibald, Bruce Marriott, Jim King (Middle) Marie Isaman, Rose Gorniak, Stephanie Spornitz (Front) Bob Allen, Darcy Eddleston, Lanie Parr
At their organizational meeting, trustees selected their Chair and Vice Chair for the 2017-2018 school year. Trustee Darcy Eddleston was elected Chair of the BTPS Board of Trustees. Trustee Lanie Parr was elected Vice Chair of the BTPS Board of Trustees.
We want to congratulate them and thank them for their leadership of our jurisdiction! This week could be a sugar-filled week of fun for students! Many schools will be holding activities related to the Halloween season. As well, Tuesday will see many of our students venturing out for trick and treating fun! The excitement of this evening combined with some of the costume limitations will mean that we will need to be extra careful when we are out and about. We want everyone to have a fantastic evening and enjoy all the good that comes with this event. Take care,
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HUMAN RESOURCES
Update on the Classroom Improvement Fund:
The BTPS CIF Committee is excited to announce, what they hope to be some welcome news for our schools.
In addition to CIF Proposal #1 which targeted the hiring of 3 Mental Health Professionals, the CIF committee has submitted a second proposal that address the remaining $216,000 available to BTPS within the CIF Grant, which has now been approved.
This second proposal calls for the distribution of the remaining $216,000 to BTPS schools on a per teacher FTE basis (approximately $850/FTE) to be utilized to positively impact the classroom experience for students in one or more of the following ways: (Categories)
hiring of additional teaching staff or increasing current teaching FTE
hiring of additional non-teaching staff or increasing the FTE of current non-teaching staff
purchasing of materials or non-capital equipment for the classroom (i.e. chromebooks, literacy resources, etc.)
new or augmented professional development initiatives to address student specific needs
A condition of the CIF committee's proposal is that each school will be expected to establish a school based committee consisting of the principal and at least two other teachers, who in consultation with the school's teaching staff, will submit a plan to the CIF committee for the expenditure of the school's allocation. The school committee will also be expected to report back to the CIF committee as to how the funds improved the student experience in the classroom. While plans can be submitted as soon as possi-ble, the committee requires each school's plan to be submitted by December 1st, 2017.
Teachers are encouraged to become involved with their school’s committee to create a plan that will improve the student experience in the classroom. Ideas from original submissions should be brought forth again to the school’s committee for consideration. The committee should be mindful of the need to report the improve-ments back to the CIF committee to include in the final report.
All funds must be committed (not necessarily completely spent) by March 1st, 2018 . Any uncommitted funds as of March 31st, 2018 will be redistributed back to all other schools.
Prior to June 30th, the school committee will be asked to provide a short report to the CIF committee with respect to the impact to the Classroom Experience for Students of their respective plan.
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TECHNOLOGY
GROWTH OF THE BTPS NETWORK:
In 2010, BTPS operated on a wired network. Physical labs with 20 to 30 PCs in every school with big old CRT monitors that were 15” diagonal! The network had a 60 mbps head end connection with each school using five mbps. Now we operate around 3000 wireless devices on a network that has 1000 mbps head end connection and every school has 100mbps capacity. This is a 16 times increase in capacity in the last seven years and it is not slow-ing down
Last month Axia, our Supernet provider provided us with the following statistics. In September our network passed;
16,800 terabytes of data that is 184,717,950,000,000 bytes of data.
This went at an average of 1.064 gigabit per sec and our network was up for 100% of the time.
The peak time for operation is around 11am in the morning with 380 mbps being downloaded and 40 mbps being uploaded.
We are now in the process of creating BTPS’s third generation network. This network will be built on the Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. Two weeks ago, we entered into a partnership with Cybera to provide a new Palo Alta virtual firewall that will be housed in Cybera’s data centre. This device is virtual and we can ex-pand it any time we want. This will avoid the problem of having devices running out of capacity.
Secondly, we have contracted Microsoft to create space in their Data centre to host our backups in the “cloud”. It is our full intention to move all devices from our Network operating centre to cloud based virtual machines in the next two years. This way we can scale up at the speed of our users. So keep finding more innovative ways to use our network!
EMAIL SCAMS:
“If in doubt, throw it out”. Almost every email you get from a company’s etc. that you were not expecting are probably a fraud. Stay vigilant and protect our data. Think before you click
Please read the email sent to all users on Oct 25th called “Ransomware Warning” about a new ransomware threat called Bad Rabbit.
Reminder: Do not call the main central office switchboard , as they are not able to help with technology. Problems with Technology email - [email protected] Problems with PowerSchool or PowerTeacher email - [email protected] Phone - 780.806.2053 Text - 780.806.9228 Twitter hashtag #btps28 BTTube:
EXTRAS
What is the name of the
new ransomware
threat?
Answer here.
GERRI CAMERON @ VERMILION ELEMENTARY
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TRANSPORTATION
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NEW:
The Student Transportation Association of Alberta (STAA) is requesting nominations for their annual Bus Driver of the Year Award. If you or your school has a bus driver that goes above and beyond the call of duty to transport students safely to and from school you can nominate them for Bus Driver of the Year. Click here for details on who is eligible and how to nominate.
Thank you to the Marwayne Jubilee School for sharing pictures of their Safely on Board Presentation with me
The deadline for poster contest submissions is Tuesday, October 31, 2017. We have to send them to Nisku, AB so please get them in as soon as you can. Let me know if you are still sending them so we know to expect them. Thank you.
STUDENT SAFETY IS OUR GOAL!
Chrysti Mannix
Director of Transportation
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CURRICULUM
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Preparing to Remember
Veterans November 11, 2017
Join the Conversation: #CanadaRem em bers
- Postcards for Peace provides an opportunity for
youth to send postcards to express messages of thanks to
those who served Canada in times of war, military conflict
and peace or to still-serving Canadian Armed Forces mem-
bers.
- How We Remember Contest (grades 4— 12) asks
students to consider what we should remember, whose expe-
riences should be commemorated and how, what the ethical
dimensions of remembrance are, and if heroism, sacrifice and
injustice should all be commemorated in the same way? Great
questions for deepening understanding and inquiring into the
practice of holding Remembrance Day ceremonies in our
schools.
- The Memory Project is a nationwide bilingual pro-
ject that connects Veterans and Canadian forces personnel
with the opportunity to share their stories with Canadians in
classrooms and community forums.
- Veterans Affairs Canada also has an amazing video
library, Veterans’ week learning resources and profiles of
courage series.
- Historica Canada has resources and activities to sup-
port acts of remembrance., such as this integrated Arts lesson
plan for grades 4—12. Many good ideas for cross-curricular
and competency based performances appropriate for Remem-
brance Day ceremonies.
- 2Learn has a special edition that just focuses on re-
sources to help teachers teach and students learn:.
A collection of videos
from Veterans Affairs.
First Nations, Métis and
Inuit Education Resources
Alberta Education has released new
lessons plans in the four core areas,
grade 1—9 that focus on the history
of First Nations, Métis and Inuit—
and the legacy of residential
schools. You can read about the
lessons or view/print the sample
lessons to use in your classroom!
With Hallow-
een this
week, it’s a
great time to
talk about
cultural appropriation. Defeather-
ing Halloween: 3 Things to keep
in mind about headdresses is a
great article that explains the cul-
tural significance of headdresses
and why they should never be worn
as a costume.
150 Acts of Reconciliation for
Canada’s 150
This is a great arti-
cle with 150 ideas
for reconciliation.
We still have a few
months left in 2017
and there is no time
better than NOW to
begin your journey of
reconciliation.
Poster #05 of the Graphic History Collective’s series
Remember l Resists l Redraw: A Radical History Poster
Project. Text: Erica Violet Lee. Artwork: Anonymous (by
request).
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AROUND BTPS - MANNVILLE SCHOOL
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The Grade 6 and 9 classes focused on the upcoming election this week in Social Studies. Two candidates running for local council came in and spoke to both grades about local government. The Grade 6's also held a mock election with the help of some great Grade 4 students!
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AROUND BTPS - EH WALTER SCHOOL
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Here are a few pictures from the EH Walter FCC drive away hunger!
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AROUND BTPS - MARWAYNE SCHOOL
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Islay Auxilary visited Marwayne School and bought a cake to thank us for brightening up their hallways with pictures from our students.
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AROUND BTPS - MARWAYNE SCHOOL
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Art 9 Self Portraits and some beautiful Autumn Colors.
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AROUND BTPS - MANNVILLE SCHOOL
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On Tuesday, October 17 Mrs. Amero’s Grade 4 class had a presentation on natural de-composers. Miss C from Butterfly Wings n’ Wishes came and shared her knowledge with us. Students had the opportunity to get up and personal with red wiggler worms, various beetles, Isopods, millipedes and centipedes. Miss C also brought in a cockroach and a tarantula. Students learned that decomposers are vital to clean up our world. Miss C discussed common myths about the natural decomposers and the students had the opportunity to interact with the decomposers she brought in. Students had a chance to see the composting process as it happens. The class pur-chased some composting worms to start their own composting bin. A huge thank you to Miss C and Butterfly Wings n’ Wishes.
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AROUND BTPS - EDGERTON SCHOOL
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On Monday, Edgerton School had a great day with the Earth Rangers. Throughout the day students in Grades 1-9 saw presentations about the environment and conservation. These presentations included real animals! Thanks to the Earth Rangers for visiting Edgerton School.
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AROUND BTPS - IRMA SCHOOL
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Irma student leaders attending HASS (Healthy Active School Symposium) in Viking on October 17 to bring back ideas to implement into our school community!
Irma student leaders attending HASS (Healthy Active School Symposium) in Viking on October 17 to bring back ideas to implement into our school community!
Congratulations to Irma School’s Junior Girls volley-ball team who won gold in Edgerton’s tournament on October 14! Way to Mustangs!
Date Night was a great success thanks to the support of great Irma community families of 21 kids! Serving the World club members thank these families as we were able to raise $280 tonight to go to-wards their annual fundraising for the Alberta Health Foundation
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AROUND BTPS - IRMA SCHOOL
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On October 19, Irma School had the pleasure of learning about OHV safety and respect from the Alberta Snowmobile Association Safe Riders program. Thank you to them for coming in!
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AROUND BTPS - IRMA SCHOOL
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Irma School’s grade 10 foods class had a carrot cake-off. They were very creative and made some fantastic looking and tasting cakes. Thanks to Mrs. Gwinn and Mr. Parsons for judging and Gayle Soucy for the carrots!