Photo courtesy GPPSD

By Erika Rolling

Education

GPPSD Superintendant reflects on past year of learning

Dec 30, 2022 | 12:35 PM

Superintendent of the Grande Prairie Public School Division Sandy McDonald says 2022 as a whole has been good… but “hasn’t been without its challenges.”

McDonald reflected on the past two years to present day illness spreading in-between children becoming a challenge for their schools to manage the student and staff absences.

He says they hired additional staff this year, including teachers, educational assistants, non-instructional staff, and councilors, but notes they don’t have adequate levels of substitute teachers or assistants like in previous years.

“So we’ve been managing all of that and it creates a complex situation in the schools… but through it all out schools have kept the focus on student learning and they’ve done a fantastic job.”

The Superintendant notes the division constantly does surveys with great response rates from staff, students, and parents. He says they are doing a good job with satisfaction in professional learning, quality of education, high graduation rates, three-year high school completion rates, and academic success both locally and provincially.

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McDonald says the division is wrapping up their annual education results report, which will be presented to the GPPSD Board at their meeting on January 10 for approval.

Since the introduction of new mandatory curriculum changes for K-3 English Language Arts, Literature and Numeracy, and the K-6 Physical Education and Wellness, MacDonald says staff are managing it. “The work that we are doing this year is just the start of it, but it’s promising.”

A new monthly newsletter to parents with children going to GPPSD schools was implemented since the new curriculum to keep guardians in the loop and up to date on what the division is doing in those regards.

McDonald says teachers had the choice to pilot or optionally implement the new curriculum; “to get a sense and get ready for next year, when our expectation, is that it becomes mandatory.”

He ends the year on a high note of the “long-awaited” opening of the brand new Grande Prairie Composite High School at the beginning of the current academic year in September, saying “we are quite fortunate in this division and community.”