End of school year message from Superintendent Dhillon

Dear families,

As the cool and wet spring weather warms into the promise of a bright and re-energizing summer, I want to take a moment to thank all students, staff, and families for another successful school year. The school year has ended for most of our students, with only Kanaka Creek Elementary remaining in session until July 26. For students registered in summer learning, classes will begin after the Canada Day long weekend, on Tuesday, July 5, 2022.

While we began the 2021/22 school year with some uncertainty, recent months have brought a comforting return to more familiar routines. Our District Highlights magazine captures just some of the wonderful initiatives and events in our schools this year; I invite you to flip through the pages and celebrate along with our school communities.

In this issue of our annual magazine, you will also find information about the equity scan work in our school district, led by Dr. Amy Parent and her research team. The purpose of the equity scan was to help identify both promising practices and barriers that were impacting Indigenous student achievement and success. Although the scan itself is now complete, our work in this area is only beginning as we review the resulting Deepening Indigenous Education and Equity report and prepare to implement a plan, giving consideration to the recommendations arising from this important work.

Also included in our year-end magazine is a letter from Minister of Education and Child Care Jennifer Whiteside, which includes words of congratulations to the graduating class of 2022 and wishes for a fun-filled summer for all school communities (click here to read this letter now online).

We continue to be a growing and increasingly more diverse school district. We welcome and embrace this diversity, which enriches our school communities and strengthens the fabric of our district. The school district website and all elementary school websites now have an embedded translate function for many of the most common languages. We will be adding this functionality to our secondary school websites over the summer break. If the language your family speaks is not included on your child’s school website and you feel you would benefit from this functionality, reach out to your child’s school principal with the request that it be added for the next school year.

We have much to be proud of in our school district, but there is more work ahead of us. I look forward to continuing this journey with you in the 2022/23 school year.

I wish all our students, families, and staff refreshing and relaxing summer holidays. If you plan to go abroad this summer, remember to follow federal requirements for international travel upon your return. You can find up-to-date information on travel and quarantine requirements at https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid.

As always, if we receive any important updates over the summer months, I will share these with you before the next school year begins.

Wishing you a relaxing and refreshing summer,

Harry Dhillon
Superintendent of Schools