The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor A more detailed high school report card is among the changes Flin Flon students and staff will notice as they settle into a new school year. Hapnot Collegiate is a pilot school for the new provincial report card expected to be implemented Manitoba-wide next fall. "It will be, we hope, easier for parents to understand where their students are doing well and where they'll need some additional support," said Superintendent of Schools Blaine Veitch. The new report card includes a traditional percentage mark but also assesses a student's skills with respect to responsibility, organization, collaboration, initiative, self-regulation and the ability to work independently. "It's more similar to the Ontario report card," Veitch said. Aside from a more precise analysis of each student, Veitch welcomes the notion of all Manitoba schools following the same report card template. "When you have students moving between schools, having the same report card makes it easier to know where the students are at with the credits they've earned (and) what their strengths are," he said. Veitch said the division had been looking to implement its own revised high school report card but opted to become a pilot school upon learning of the province's plans for a uniform card. The pilot initiative will apply only to Hapnot, as Many Faces Education Centre will continue to use its usual report card. Just as he hopes the new report card will help bolster education, Veitch is also optimistic about Reading is Thinking, a new high school pilot course. "It's a new program to help students improve their literacy skills in grades 9 through 11, and right now we're starting out just with the Grade 9 course," he said. The course is being offered in part because literacy has been identified as an area of learning requiring improvement at the high school level in Flin Flon. Only a handful of other schools in Manitoba are offering the course, Veitch said. Achievement Test Meanwhile, all Flin Flon students will, for the second year in a row, write the Canadian Achievement Test Ð a standardized test measuring numeracy and literacy Ð in the spring. Veitch said the goal is to have 95 per cent of students improve upon their scores from last year by at least one grade level. "Of course you have to take some of the test results with a grain of salt," he said. "There may be some reasons a student did poorly; they may not be feeling well. But I think in general it will give us some good information (and) give students and parents some good information." Veitch added the test is "very helpful in helping all children move ahead" but stressed it is just one piece of the learning puzzle. Also new this school year: The division expects to have automated defibrillators, used to restart a heart that has stopped beating, at place in all the schools by the end of the month. "It's to help our staff, students and public address emergency needs if they should arise," said Veitch, adding the schools see "a lot of community use" in the evenings and on weekends. The division will use sunlight-simulating lamps at each of the four schools to help students who may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Hapnot is offering a new Grade 11 course on financial management, helping students better understand concepts such as economics, investing and budgeting. Plans are in place to again bring in a science student from the University of Saskatchewan to spend six weeks working with junior high students and staff. New teaching and guidance staff include Vanessa Unrau (elementary music, McIsaac and Ruth Betts); Meredith Lloyd (Grade 6, Ruth Betts); Nicole Menzies, Sharon Trubiak and Linda Smerch (resource, Ruth Betts); Alanna Simpson (phys-ed, Hapnot); and Marlene Gogal (counsellor, McIsaac).
