Key Communiqué

This bulletin comes from the CBE's Communications Advisor and is to be shared with the school council and parent community.

Registration Forms:

Thank you to everyone who submitted their registration forms to me and my apologies for not providing the link to the registration form in the previous edition of the Key Communiqué. Here is the form. Please ensure that it is filled out and faxed to 403-294-8172 Attn: Katie at your earliest convenience.

System Orientation Session - Important Update:

This year we are going to try a new approach to the System Orientation Session. We are going to organize it as a webinar. You will be able to ask questions, interact with speakers virtually and view their presentations on your screen as we progress through the session. It will take place at the end of October and I will finalize the date ASAP.

After the session is over, we will send a recorded version to your schools in case you wanted to share the information with other council members.

Key Communicator Steering Committee:

There are some vacancies for the Key Communicator Steering Committee this year. If you are interested, please email me for details.

Area Meetings:

If you are a returning Key Communicator or School Council Chair, I would really appreciate your input with regard to Area Meetings. If you could please take a moment to fill out this brief survey it will assist us greatly moving forward.

Three-Year Education Plan:

The CBE's Three-Year Education Plan is like the compass that guides the strategic direction for the system. All school boards in Alberta are required to maintain a three-year timeframe for their plans and all plans must be updated annually. As one year is completed, another is added, rolling the plan forward. The plan is revised and adjusted based on performance and changes in the operating environment.

Click here to read the CBE's plan and get an in depth look at where we our system is headed in the future.

Provincial Achievement Test Results:

The results are in and there is much to celebrate. Recently, the results from the Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma exams were released and CBE students displayed results well above the provincial standards as well as improved results locally.

In the PAT’s, Math scores for Grades 3, 6 and 9 have all gone up in the acceptable and excellence categories over last year’s results. Our students have also made gains in Language Arts in the acceptable and excellence categories.

In Diploma exams, CBE students improved in the excellence category in Pure Math 30 over last year. Applied Math 30 has shown improvement since the 2007/2008 school year in both the acceptable and excellence categories. CBE students improved in both categories in Biology 30 over last year.

Student Enrolment:

CBE Chief Superintendent of Schools Naomi Johnson announced some extremely good news about the latest enrolment figures during a public board meeting last night. She revealed that student enrolment at the CBE has increased for the new school year, according to figures submitted to Alberta Education on September 30th.

The number of students enrolled in CBE schools for the 2009 / 2010 school year is 102 413. That’s an increase of 591 students from the previous school year.

Board chair Pat Cochrane thanked Calgary parents for choosing the Calgary Board of Education as their first choice for their children’s education.

Report to the Community:

We are currently starting to work on our Report to the Community for the 2008/09 school year. If you have not seen last year's report, you can read it here.

Your input on this publication is most welcome. Do you find the stories interesting? Are there areas you'd like to see less of, or expanded? What would you like to see in a report from the CBE? We would greatly appreciate your thoughts and feedback on this publication. Please email me.

WorldSkills Calgary 2009:

We are very interested in your perspective on the impact of WorldSkills on your child. We would appreciate if you would take a few minutes to complete this anonymous online survey to provide us with data that will be presented to our CBE Superintendents’ Team and to the Trustees. Please feel free to send the link to other parents who would be interested in giving us their opinions on this event. The deadline for completing the survey is October 16.

Please click on the following link and answer the questions, then click DONE to submit your answers.

CAPSC:

CAPSC is Calgary’s city-wide, public school parent association. CAPSC’s primary goal is to keep parents up to date and involved in their children’s education, and to help make individual school’s Parent Councils as effective as possible. CAPSC provides parents with resources, learning and sharing opportunities. They represent parent concerns to the CBE and all levels of government. For more information or to subscribe to their newsletter, visit www.capsc.ca.

School Council Development

School Council Development (SCD) provides workshops and resource materials to assist school councils.

School Council Development provides the following services:

Workshops for school councils anywhere in Alberta
Toll Free School Council Consultation Line - 1-800-661-3470
Instructor training to deliver workshops to school councils
Resource manual and materials for school council

Alberta Education

School Council Resource Manual