Throne Speech Announces New Education Initiatives

The Tuesday, February 12 Speech from the Throne which marked the beginning of the Fourth Session of the Thirty-Eighth Parliament in Victoria made reference to a moderate number of new education initiatives that the government plans to pursue in this legislative session.  These included:

• An expansion of the StrongStart Centres to reach a total of 400 by 2010
• The formation of an Early Childhood Education Agency to assess the feasibility and costs of full day kindergarten for five-year olds, It will also undertake a feasibility study of providing choice of day-long kindergarten for four-year olds by 2010 and three-year-olds by 2012.
• A ban on trans-fats in schools by 2010
• The ability for the College of Teachers to remove the teaching certificate of any member who is found to be incompetent.

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Updated AGM 2008 schedule now available

The BC School Trustees Association’s 104th Annual General Meeting, April 3-6 in Vancouver, is drawing closer – and we now have an updated schedule.

We invite you to peruse the highlights of our AGM 2008, including:

• Keynote presentation by the Honourable Bob Rae, Ontario’s 21st Premier (1990-95). Mr. Rae was elected eight times to federal and provincial parliaments and is the Liberal candidate in the federal riding of Toronto Centre. He also serves as the party’s spokesman on foreign policy, and is co-chair of the Platform Committee.
• A Canadian School Boards Association Presidents’ Panel – “Trusteeship, governance and local elections across Canada – the state of the nation.”
• Plenary Presentation by Mary Delagardelle, Iowa School Board Association, reporting on the Lighthouse Project study of school board influence on student achievement.

Register online at www.bcsta.org/AGMreg2008.

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Interruptions to BCSTA website and
e-mail

This just in from Mike Gagel, BCSTA’s Director of Information & Education Technology:

Our landlord, the Vancouver School Board, has informed us of two upcoming periods of power interruption due to scheduled maintenance to the electrical system.

These power interruptions will temporarily disrupt access to BCSTA's website and e-mail on:

• Sunday, February 17, 12:30 am - 6:30 am
• Sunday, February 24, 12:30 am - 6:30 am

We apologize for any inconvenience these outages may cause you.

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e-Alert sums up Auditor General’s new Report on Literacy

The Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia released its 2007/2008 report,  Literacy – Creating the Conditions for Reading and Writing Success and a February 8 e-Alert summed up the salient points for our membership.

The report reviews progress towards the government’s literacy goals, and in particular, efforts made by the Ministries of Education and Advanced Education and a selection of boards of education. The report says the government has demonstrated leadership in promoting literacy by developing a province-wide strategy but “the actual cost of implementing its strategy is still unknown.” More could be done to reach out to potential literacy learners and that better support through data and funding is needed, as well as improved monitoring and performance reporting.

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Check out CSBA’s latest InfoPicks

The Canadian School Boards Association regularly publishes InfoPicks, a selection of education news items of interest to boards across the country. The latest issue features stories on “Private and Voucher Schools” and “Homework myths and context,” among others.

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