WEYBURN - A nine-member team of educational superintendents and co-ordinators descended on the conference room in the head office of the South East Cornerstone Public School Division on March 25 to deliver a walk through of data from the division.
They had been invited to attend the board members’ monthly business meeting to go over a host of facts and figures in front of a friendly audience seeking the information they could impart.
The semi-regular wall walk has become a vital event within the school division as these co-ordinators and superintendents go over the details of the progress being made by making use of a wall covered with colourful graphs and charts used for tracking student progress at all levels.
In fact, director of education Keith Keating began the discussion by noting how the charts track classroom actions, progress and tiers of students as well as individual levels of achievement.
Keating noted the array of details, tacked to the conference room’s wall, were models or examples of what teachers are doing and how the streaming methods track the progress “from our perspective at a system level, regardless of which schools are involved.”
Nathan Johnson, superintendent of human resources, was the first team member to hit the charts. He, along with Jacquelene Gibbs, co-ordinator of early learning, attacked the subject of student transitions.
Johnson spoke of tracking three-year graduation rates, enrolment data and referred to the “catch-up” tracks being used by students and their educators at various stages and how it was important for the teams to keep paying attention to the results being established.
Gibbs spoke about the early learning years, rates of progress and the challenges that ensued in the process of learning at this significant level. She also spoke of literacy levels for the entire division and how and why they are tracking complete caseloads.
Next up were Cathy Hiltz and Cheryl Anderson. Hiltz serves the division as superintendent of schools in Cornerstone's southern sector and Anderson is the co-ordinator of student services.
These two team members spoke of learning and assessment processes, leaning into various grade groupings. For example, Hiltz noted, through the graphic examples, how the Grade 1-3 students are showing excellent growth patterns in terms of literary comprehension and vocabulary. In fact, she added, “there are some great things to celebrate here,” while pointing to the chart that gave truth to her statement.
Anderson pointed out how the graphs and charts could be read in different ways and manners but still recognize the fact there was great growth and the use of the “maps” supports the statements.
Kevin Hengen, superintendent of schools for the eastern region, and Michael Graham, co-ordinator of curriculum, were up next to focus on growth patterns within the Indigenous education programs including First Nations and Métis areas of achievement.
They spoke of literacy levels, the successes being recorded and the areas where a cautionary approach was being recommended. Graham pointed out that since the enrolment numbers were fewer than other examples, such tracks such as attendance and results in particular areas could be skewered to some degree due to these lower enrolment numbers.
The final duo at the chart wall were Tracey Kiliwnik, co-ordinator of learning supports and Devon Dempsey, superintendent of schools for the western region. They spoke about mental health and well-being.
Kiliwnik addressed the social-emotional issues and how they are being addressed and why the key to successful intervention is done through early identification of a pending problem.
With the wall data in front of her, Kiliwnik talked about how counsellors dealt with mental health and emotional issues and that about five to eight per cent of the student body end up “in the red zone.”
Dempsey pointed out how the systems of intervention have improved compared with the previous year and how some issues such as lower attendance rates are often associated with unrelated facts such as poor weather conditions. She noted how last year attendance was affected 168 times by weather-related incidents that caused bus route cancellations, while this school year there were 894 weather related incidents, so those could confuse the statistic readers.
She said there continues to be the need for a robust attendance system so that those on the assistance side or, “what the story is behind the absenteeism,” could be enveloped and reported accordingly.
She concluded by saying that it was an issue of “what can we do to help, and that’s not a judgment, it’s assistance.”
At various stages of the presentations, the team members answered queries from board members regarding specific areas of individual interest as well as broader questions on the data collection system.
The nine members then departed the conference room after being thanked by the board and chairwoman Audrey Trombley.
