FORT FRANCES—The Rainy River District School board has developed an assessment for screening senior kindergarten students, and currently is running a pilot project to introduce a similar assessment for junior kindergarten children.
“What’s unique about the whole program is that it’s not just an assessment,” Ann Anderson, the board’s speech pathologist, explained to trustees at Tuesday night’s regular monthly meeting here.
The program includes suggested next steps once the assessment is done so the child is moved on to special programs or further testing, if necessary.
“It’s actually doing something to help the child. Maybe they won’t require special education programs down the road,” Anderson said.
The screening process was launched for SK in 2003/04, following two years of pilot projects.
There had been an existing assessment tool prior to this but it focused only on literacy and numeracy, and was “onerous,” Anderson said.
“We decided to develop our own,” she noted, that takes into account all aspects of the kindergarten curriculum.
The students undergo the screening in September and again in May to measure improvements. About 160 SK students were assessed this year.
The screening tests such skills as rhyme detection, letter recognition, reading and writing vocabulary, patterning, geometry, and number recognition.
“It tells the teacher what they’re going to be focusing on, based on the competencies of their kids,” Anderson said.
The board has received funding from Northern Ontario Education Leaders (NOEL) to begin another project in three schools—Huffman, Crossroads, and Donald Young—with JK students.
Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, the board heard a report from the Aboriginal Education Advisory Committee.
Brent Tookenay, assistant to the director, said the board has been working closely with the local United Native Friendship Centre while drum groups and dance groups have been started at Robert Moore and J.W. Walker schools.
“It’s really had a positive impact,” Tookenay said. “It really speaks volumes for the partnerships we have with the [UNFC] and the communities.”
The committee also gave an update on the board’s aboriginal self-identification process. The response from communities was “good,” and the board will submit its information to the Ministry of Education in the coming weeks.
The board also is working on establishing parental involvement workshops for parents of aboriginal students, and has prepared a handbook as a support tool.
In related news, Fort Frances High School reported a decline in enrolment of aboriginal students since the beginning of the current school year.
“The school will look into partnerships with neighbouring communities to track students when they leave [Fort High],” the committee’s report read.
Also Tuesday night, the board passed a new policy which grants non-binding voting privileges to student trustees.
“The student trustee shall be a voting member and act in concert with other elected trustees to examine and discuss issues leading to a vote at regular meetings of the board, unless the student trustee has a conflict of interest,” the new policy reads.
“It will be a non-binding vote reflecting the view of the student trustee.”
A student trustee is elected or appointed to the board each year from among the senior students at one of its three secondary schools.
The purpose of the position is “to encourage leadership development and to provide students with an opportunity to have input into decisions affecting their lives,” the policy reads.
In other business, the board awarded its Recognition of Excellence to Crossroads School in Devlin for its “Sharing Circle” program for students in the Living and Learning classroom.
Principal Dianne Thompson was on hand with some staff and students to accept the award.
The board also recognized the contributions of its business office staff, including human resources, payroll, accounting, transportation, and the tax department, in its monthly REACH program.
There are 12 people in that department. “They are behind the front lines of education,” said Superintendent of Business Laura Mills. “We have an exceptional team.”
The public board will hold its next monthly meeting Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. at Robert Moore School here.
Fort Frances Times
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