Greater Victoria public schools thread

Parents group fundraising to save Greater Victoria elementary strings program

Online campaign goal $85K, foundation offers to chip in if community support found



https://www.vicnews....trings-program/




1/4 way there already.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 May 2022 - 06:18 PM.

After the Greater Victoria School District board passed a budget that did not include funding for the Elementary Strings music program, parents stepped up and fundraised to make up the difference.

At Monday’s school board meeting, Karin Kwan, a representative for Advocacy for Music In Schools (AMIS) group, said the group had successfully fundraised $208,000 needed to fund the program for another year.

________


Trustees Tom Ferris and Elaine Leonard voted against accepting the funds. Ferris said he would like to see the funds put towards writing or arithmetic programs instead, and Leonard raised concerns that the strings program may not be offered equitably to all elementary schools in the district.


https://www.cheknews...rogram-1040149/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 31 May 2022 - 05:20 PM.

Wow, those two are a couple of party poopers aren't they. Next election, know who not to vote for.

Wow.  Missing from the article is the information we most need.  How many students are there in Port Renfrew?

 

 

 

The Sooke School District is proposing a partnership with the Pacheedaht First Nation to create two new schools in Port Renfrew, where students now have to bus to Sooke after Grade 5.

 

School board chairman Ravi Parmar said a kindergarten-Grade 12 campus in the community would mean students wouldn’t have to ride a bus three or more hours a day to get to and from the nearest middle or secondary school in Sooke.

 

The district’s goal is to replace the existing K-Grade 5 school in Port Renfrew while the Pacheedaht would secure federal funds for a Grade 6-12 school. It’s one of the proposals put forward by the district in its capital-plan submission for 2022-23 to the provincial government.

 

“The campus would drastically improve access for Grade 5-12 students by offering education in their home community,” Parmar said.

 

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...renfrew-5547519

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 July 2022 - 05:37 AM.

Coal Tyee Elementary School has a new Indigenous name: Syuẁén’ct, which means “our tradition, our history” in Hul’q’umi’num.

The Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools board voted unanimously in favour of the new name for the school, which opened in 1996.

It also agreed to name Nanaimo District Secondary School’s community field Q’unq’inuqwstuxw, which means “Pass it back” or “return.”


https://www.timescol...us-name-5591291

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 July 2022 - 10:07 AM.

...It also agreed to name Nanaimo District Secondary School’s community field Q’unq’inuqwstuxw, which means “Pass it back” or “return.”..

But will more commonly be known as "unpronounceable community field name".

Does virtue signalling ensure clean water for first nation reserves?

The much anticipated completion of Centre Mountain Lellum Middle School in Langford won’t come in time for the new school year, according to School District #62.

The school’s September 1st completion date has been pushed back to “early November,” according to the district, which cited material supply issues and a labour shortage as the reasons for a November opening.

Students and families impacted by the delay have been contacted by the district, according to a statement from SD62.

Didn’t he teach at South Park?

Lifetime ban for Victoria teacher who had sexual relationship with student

Brent Richard Garraway, a secondary teacher for the Greater Victoria school district, became physically intimate with the student prior to the student’s graduation in 2005.

https://www.timescol...student-5741896


Brent Richard Garraway, a secondary teacher for the Greater Victoria School District who earned a teaching certificate in 2001, coached the student in soccer from Grade 10. He became physically intimate with the student prior to the student’s graduation from Grade 12 in 2005.

The student would “periodically” stay in Garraway’s apartment overnight. After graduation, a sexual relationship started that lasted until December 2006.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 August 2022 - 05:51 PM.

Archived versions of Oak Bay High’s staff directory show a Brent Garraway listed as a teacher as recently as 2017. Through calls to the school and correspondence with former students, including confirmation through yearbook photos, Capital Daily has learned it is the Garraway in question—and that in addition to coaching soccer, he also led school-affiliated spring break trips to Mexico.

https://www.capitald...her-sex-scandal

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 August 2022 - 05:54 PM.

Nanaimo-area private school fires principal over allegations of ‘inappropriate online activity’

Archived versions of Oak Bay High’s staff directory show a Brent Garraway listed as a teacher as recently as 2017. Through calls to the school and correspondence with former students, including confirmation through yearbook photos, Capital Daily has learned it is the Garraway in question—and that in addition to coaching soccer, he also led school-affiliated spring break trips to Mexico.

https://www.capitald...her-sex-scandal

Also kind of creepy harvesting yearbook photos, beyond photos of just Garraway.

Hundreds walked the streets of Victoria to commemorate the anniversary of Chinese students holding a strike against an old school district segregation policy.

In 1922, the Victoria School District implemented a policy segregating Chinese students up to Grade 7. On Sept. 5, 1922, the first day that the policy was in effect, Chinese students of George Jay Elementary School were taken from their classrooms in George Jay and Central schools and walked to the Chinese-only school on Kings Road.

https://www.cheknews...strike-1086562/





People of course are free to do whatever they want. But I can’t quite understand the attraction to this event.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 September 2022 - 03:31 AM.

Commemorating bad policy from the past and celebrating victimhood are just very fashionable these days.

Commemorating bad policy from the past and celebrating victimhood are just very fashionable these days.

 

That's what I was sort of thinking.  This event was 100 years ago, and like I say, commemorate it now if you want, but I'm not sure the purpose it serves, except yes, celebrating some kind of victimhood.  By almost every measure, Asians/Chinese descendants in this country are doing extremely well, on the whole.  Of course there was segregation back then, that's how the world worked.  Around the same time, women could not yet vote.  And other citizens until the 60's.  We segregated disabled people in education until the 80's.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 September 2022 - 06:59 AM.

That's what I was sort of thinking.  This event was 100 years ago, and like I say, commemorate it now if you want, but I'm not sure the purpose it serves, except yes, celebrating some kind of victimhood.  By almost every measure, Asians/Chinese descendants in this country are doing extremely well, on the whole.  Of course there was segregation back then, that's how the world worked.  Around the same time, women could not yet vote.  And other citizens until the 60's.  We segregated disabled people in education until the 80's.

 

And we still do, in many ways, just not as blatant.

The City of Langford is funding a turf field with lights on South Skirt Mountain several years ahead of a new school’s construction.

From SD62:

The Sooke School District is partnering with the City of Langford to install a turf field with lights on the site of the future North Langford Elementary School on South Skirt Mountain. The tendering process for site preparations has concluded, and installation will be completed by early 2023.
The funding for the build of the North Langford Elementary School has not been approved to date but the Sooke School District owns the land and is committed to using the space to promote a healthy and active community in the interim. When the turf field opens in early 2023, it will be a community asset that users can book for community athletics and activities. Once funding is approved and the build of the school has completed, the school will have exclusive use of the field during school hours and community users will have the ability to book the turf during evenings, weekends and non-school days.
“We are proud to partner with the City of Langford on another project that expands the portfolio of more useable space for community groups and athletics,” said Ravi Parmar, Chairperson of the Sooke School District Board of Education. “It’s an incredible opportunity to have turf and lights installed on the North Langford Elementary site, now all we need is a school.”
The City of Langford will fund the installation of the turf field and lights on the site. “Instead of the land sitting unused until the school is built several years from now, we saw an opportunity to transform this space into a field that community user groups can start using right away,” said Stew Young, Mayor of Langford. “The new turf will be an excellent addition to the existing recreational opportunities Langford has to support an active and healthy community.”
“This is amazing news for the kids in our community and for community sports. We are grateful to the City of Langford and the Sooke School District for their support and commitment to partnering on projects that benefit the whole community,” said Lucy Hansen, President of the Greater Victoria Minor Football Association. “The support we have seen from the City of Langford and the Sooke School District has been overwhelming.”
With a record number of registrations, Juan de Fuca Soccer Association is also excited to see another turf coming to the West Shore. “The forward thinking of the Sooke School District Board and staff along with the City of Langford Mayor and Council to be moving ahead with another

partnership and development of a turf field for the families of the West Shore demonstrates the understanding from both parties involved of the heavy strain of use on all field venues here in the West Shore,” said Kevin Allen, President of Juan de Fuca Soccer Association. “We thank those involved for making this a reality.”
For more information, contact:
Kristen McGillivray (250) 686-3750 Manager of Strategic Communications Sooke School District
-30-

On a Saturday in September, 13-year-old José Valdes Rodriguez is in his room, using a stellar evolution and structure simulator to find the mass of a hypothetical galaxy.

 

“I took 50 stars from each spectral type and multiplied the resulting masses by their respective frequencies,” he said. “Eventually I would take that, divide it by 5,000 … what I ended up with is the average mass of every single star in the universe.”

 

José isn’t doing homework. The equation is just a little project he did for fun.

 

“I was doing it so that I could find a way, if I wanted to mathematically construct a galaxy, and wanted to know how massive it was,” he said.

 

The Esquimalt teen has only two Grade 12 courses — PhysEd and Indigenous Studies — left to complete high school, which he takes through distance learning. He’s already auditing a first-year math and second-year astronomy course as part of an accelerated entry to the University of Victoria.

 

He audited the first-year astronomy course when he was 11.

 

It’s uncertain if the university will grant him credits for the courses, but he said he receives certificates of completion for each.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...courses-5936226

Auditing?