Blog Posts

Noticing a shift in literacy instruction across the district? Wonder what is going on in the classroom down the hall?  

It has been my practice for the last few Januarys to make predictions about possible changes in the K-12 sector. This practice goes back as far as 2015 when I highlighted the top ten issues facing our education system and some things to watch for as we sought to transform it.

Imagine going to work every single day and failing to understand what your boss is saying, despite your best efforts. Worse yet, your colleagues don’t seem to be struggling at all. This could be how some of your students experience school. Next time you observe a student in your class who struggles to follow your instructions, who never seems to know what to do, who talks around and around what he wants to say, who misses jokes or sarcasm, consider DLD.

Many of you will know that I am a big football fan, (and an especially big Raider fan). The inspiration for my post this week does not come from Raider Nation, but from the Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith. If you follow the Seahawks, you will know that their Super Bowl winning quarterback, Russel Wilson was traded away and that most pundits thought that with back-up quarterback Smith at the helm, the team would be lucky to win half of their games this year.

The Abbotsford School District's Early Years learning team has been working to ensure that as many children and families have access to early learning support throughout our community. The following services and programs are currently available:

I had the pleasure this week of meeting with around fifty of Yale Secondary’s Leadership 12 students. They are an amazing and diverse group of go-getters who help to make their school and community better through service. In addition to the work they do, they are also curious about leadership and routinely invite leaders from various parts of the community to talk about their roles and perspectives on leadership. This week I was the invited guest. Among the things they wanted to learn more about were my background, how I became superintendent, as well as the joys and challenges of the job.

Any kind of move, be it moving to a new home or even moving to a new school, will involve some significant challenges. Moving involves change and change often includes discomfort and disruption to our lives. The COVID pandemic, flooding, fires, and extreme heat have all challenged us to make changes and adapt to new realities.

Many of you will know that I am a student of the World Wars, and that over the years I have written about the profound respect I have for our veterans who have put their lives on the line for the cause of freedom. As a teacher I carefully curated stories for my students about pivotal battles and Canadian heroes who helped to pave the way for the freedoms we sometimes take for granted. It was always a treat to welcome veterans into my classroom, and students always came away with a greater appreciation for the courageous lives of our service men and women, as well as the horrors of war.

The implementation of our competency-based curriculum is grounded in the Core Competencies. Personal, social, and cultural competencies are a vital part of the growth of students as they gain a deeper understanding of who they are and how they relate to others. As a Curriculum Department, we are working to include social-emotional learning and trauma-informed practices in our learning opportunities to underscore the importance of core competencies and solid foundations for learning.

As part of my personal inquiry into the student experience in our district, I have met with groups of students from each of our high schools over each of the last few years. Generally, I have asked our school leaders to ensure that the student group is diverse and represents a range in ages, gender, abilities, race and gender identities, etc. In a large high school, it is not difficult to get a diverse group, but I suspect it challenging to get a truly representative group of students who together can paint a fulsome picture of the student experience for me and the administration