The South East Cornerstone Board of Education held a community consultation session at Carlyle Elementary School Jan. 29, as part of the Cornerstone Tomorrow initiative.
The community meeting was one of several held throughout the school district and was designed to gather input from communities which can be used in future planning by the school division.
Twelve attendees including school staff members, parents, and interested citizens from Arcola, Carlyle, and Manor participated in the two-hour session, and identified successes, challenges, and priorities within their schools.
In an effort to allow participants to express their opinions “freely and frankly”, the event was led by private consultants, Lorainne Thompson and Craig Melvin.
During a brief introduction followed by a power point presentation, Deputy Director of Education, Kelly Hilkewich stated that the province's four-year plan would focus on enhanced early learning, math skills, and increasing high school graduation rates within Saskatchewan, adding that the South East Cornerstone Public Division's grade 12 graduation rate exceeded the provincial average.
Regarding reading, Hilkewich said, “We have early learning consultants that work with families right now from birth to help them transition so they are better prepared for school.”
“There are still a lot of kids not coming in phonetically ready for reading. But we're getting better each year,” he added.
“The goal is for three-year (grade 12) graduation rates to be 90 percent by 2017,” added Hilkewich, citing the importance of strong literacy and math skills for students in order to achieve this outcome.
After Hilkewich's departure, the twelve participants were randomly divided into three groups of four, and asked to consider what schools are doing well and how the school district could improve its programming for students, in addition to identifying challenges that needed to be addressed and prioritizing solutions to these challenges for the school division.
Generally, the groups were impressed with school staff and the involvement of their communities. Many of the challenges they cited were universal, such as bullying, catchment areas, and aging facilities.
However, the participants specified many concerns unique to rural school communities, such as: busing, equitable programming among schools, school closures, and student population changes (due in part to a largely resource-dependent local economy), as well as preparing rural students for a successful transition to urban post-secondary education.
For more information on Cornerstone Tomorrow, visit www.cornerstonesd.ca .
