Highlights from the Creighton school board’s latest meeting, held June 18:
• Trustees received the school nutrition coordinator’s annual report.
Robertine Elliot provided a brief overview of activities for the year, including the daily snack program, the lunch canteen and the before- and after-school snack program for students participating in extracurricular activities.
In an attempt to glean parental feedback on the school’s overall nutrition program, a survey has been posted on the school website.
• Tiffany Ealey, chair of the Creighton Community School Community Council, presented a report on activities of the group.
This past year the council was provided with its own space at the school and created a parent-friendly Family Room. The council partnered with a number of other agencies to provide a variety of programming options out of this room.
In particular a strong partnership with Kids First North was formed that resulted in a biweekly story hour. This is expected to allow smoother transitions for these students and their families when they enroll at Creighton Community School.
The council also has partnered with Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation on a number of speaker presentations.
Ealey said the council is providing more direction to the school in terms of representing parents’ voice and direction.
• Principal Stacy Lair told the board about the just-completed grades 1-3 year-end Fountas and Pinnell Levelled Reading Assessment.
The year-end results indicate that 81 per cent of grades 1 to 3 students are reading at or above grade level expectations. These results are significantly improved from the beginning of the school year.
Lair attributed the results to the work of all primary classroom teachers, and to an intervention program that has been implemented this year.
• Vice-principal Jason Straile presented trustees with the results of the Early Years Evaluation for the current kindergarten class.
The evaluation is administered to kindergarten students and measures a child’s awareness of self and the environment, cognitive skills, language and communication, social skills, approaches to learning and physical development (fine and gross motor skills).
The assessment is administered each November and May. In November 2013, 62.8 per cent of Creighton students were at the developmentally appropriate level, and in May 2014 91.7 per cent of students were at that level. The provincial goal is 90 per cent.
Straile attributed the increase to the teacher’s ability to use information gathered during the November assessment to plan and implement learning activities for students.
