Dear Parents and Guardians,
Happy New Year Harold Panabaker families and welcome back to school! The New Year is always an opportunity to re-establish a focus on learning and to reflect on the changes we want or need to make and resolve to follow through on those changes. So as we begin 2020, I want to assure everyone that we will continue to be dedicated to meeting the needs of each and every student at Harold Panabaker, and the high expectations in academics success and student behavior will be the focus of our work.
To achieve these goals, our teachers had a meeting on Friday, January 10 to review and re-establish academic and behavior expectations together as a team, which centered around four Harold Panabaker Values: Respect for Self, Respect for Others, Respect for Environment and Respect for Learning. The values and expectations will be shared and reiterated with our students during our school-wide assembly on Wednesday, January 15. Further classroom discussions will be held on a regular basis to ensure a common understanding of the expectations among the students.
To achieve our School Development Plan achievement goals, which are: writing to develop, organize and express information and ideas (Language Arts), developing number sense and applying strategies for computation and estimation (Mathematics), and students feeling that school is a safe and caring place, we have implemented the following changes:
• Hired an additional Gr. 8 Math and Science teacher,
• Hired an additional Gr. 5-7 English Language Arts and Social Studies teacher,
• Hired an additional education assistant, to enhance support to ALP and L & L programs, and to improve academic experience and behavior support for all of our students.
These programming decisions were made in consultation with our staff and alongside numerous conversations with our Educational Director, Darlene Unruh. Director Unruh has spent significant time in our building getting to know our students and is working with each of her school sites to ensure that student success is the focus of our work at HPS.
I am grateful to be your principal and appreciate the time and efforts you give every day to support your children, our staff, and our community. We are off to an exciting new year to continue our journey of learning, improvements, and achievements!
Shelly Li, Principal
Christmas Hampers
Our students, especially our Leadership Class students, parents, and staff members worked hard to make the holiday season a brighter one for many families. With your generous donation, we were able to offer baskets of gifts and gift cards to some families that needed that support.
Mandarin Program Open House
We will be hosting a Mandarin Bilingual Program Open House on January 16, 2020 beginning at 6:30 PM. Our open house is intended for families considering enrolling their children in the Chinese (Mandarin) bilingual program (Gr. 5-9) for the 2020-2021 school year.
Digital Report Cards For last year’s and this year’s report cards many schools have chosen to provide reporting information online rather than printing paper report cards. This is an Eco-friendly and cost effective option for providing reporting information to parents and guardians. The report cards are viewed through Power School using the same platform that parents use to pay fees online.
Schools that have provided the online format have reported that it is quite easy for parents, guardians and students to access the information and that if a parent requires a paper copy they can print one from their home printer or visit the school’s office to request that one be provided.
At the December School Council meeting, this information was shared with parents. We would like to have further discussions regarding this at the next Parent Council meeting on January 15, 2020. Please join us to provide your valued input regarding digital Report Cards.
Accountability Pillar Survey: Information for Parents/Guardians
Each year Alberta Education conducts the Accountability Pillar Survey from mid-January to the end of February. Alberta Education uses the Accountability Pillar as a way for school authorities to measure their success, and assess their progress towards meeting their learning goals. The Accountability Pillar uses a set of 16 indicators consisting of: student outcomes such as dropout and high school completion rates; provincial assessments of student learning; and surveys of students, parents/guardians and teachers on various aspects of quality. Parents/Guardians of students in grade 7 will receive their survey in the mail from Alberta Education. Students in grade 7 and all teachers will complete their surveys online at school.
All surveys are anonymous and ask questions about experiences with Harold Panabaker. The survey is not asking for feedback about Alberta Education and its policies; questions are in relationship to Harold Panabaker only.
Questions on the survey are accompanied by a scale of responses (e.g., Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree, Very Satisfied to Very Dissatisfied). Each of these scales includes a Don’t Know choice. If you Don’t Know the answer to a particular question, please skip that question and go to the next one, unless you want your response to count as a negative one.
All parents/guardians receive the English version of the survey in the mail. Alberta Education also provides the survey in Arabic, Blackfoot, Chinese, Cree, French, Korean, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog and Urdu. If you would prefer to respond to the survey in one of these languages, please tell Shelly Li, Principal of Harold Panabaker and a copy will be sent to you.
It is very important that parents/guardians complete the survey and return it to Alberta Education. Alberta Education and the public use the results of the Accountability Pillar Survey to assess satisfaction with the quality of education in our schools. In addition, the Calgary Board of Education uses the information to improve teaching and learning for our students.
Your voice matters. Your participation in the survey helps provide important information on the quality of education your child is receiving. Alberta Education and the Calgary Board of Education thank you for returning the parent Accountability Pillar Survey promptly. If you have questions, please contact Shelly Li.
