It is hard to believe that we are now entering our
last month of school for this year. I would like to commend the flexibility and
adaptability of QEHS‘ teachers and staff for their ability to radically change teaching
methods to emergency teaching in remote locations. While we cannot say the
transition was perfect and seamless, I am proud of where we got to. Thank you
to parents and caregivers for working through challenging times and supporting
their children learning at home. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the
students of QEHS who continued to engage, strive, and learn where possible.
Congratulations to the QEHS graduating class of 2020!
This is an amazing cohort of students that I wish I had more time to get to
know before they moved onto the next phase of their lives. They are a group
that showed me why QEHS is such an amazing school where students can truly be
who they want to be, where students have a primary focus on learning and
everyone is treated with kindness and respect. I know these students will be
successful in what every endeavour they choose to pursue it the future. A video
compilation will be provided to grads later in June as well as a future social
gathering is being planned for once schools can accommodate students within the
school.
While our education delivery method has drastically
changed, many of other operations of schools have continued. The budget for
QEHS will be finalized later this week. Two significant changes have resulted
in staffing reductions for the 2020-21 school year. First, the government has
decreased the amount of money school boards receive. While the per pupil amount
has not changed the board has reduced or cancelled numerous grants that school
boards have received resulting in less funds coming to schools. Second, the CBE
has implemented a new equity funding model which distributes money in a more
equitable way across all CBE schools. As a result, we have had a reduction of
six teaching positions and three support staff positions. Some of these
reductions are due to one of our mental health classes being closed. For the
upcoming school year we will continue to have our grade 7 -12 community
program, grade 7 -12 GATE, grade 7 -12 Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), grade 10
-12 Advanced Placement (AP) courses and an expected student population of
approximately 990 students.
While we do not know what school will look like yet in
September we are planning and building a timetable based on regular
face-to-face education which we can then adapt once we know more. Six fewer
teachers will result in larger classes regardless of the delivery method. Three
fewer support staff will decrease additional help available for students. If we
do return to face-to-face classes these changes will also have an impact on
extra-curricular opportunities available as teacher will be teaching more
classes as well as increased students in each class.
Unrelated to funding, we have made a minor change to
our timetable. Our start and end times will remain the same with exception of
Friday where we will now dismiss at 1pm. Based on feedback from students we
have shifted our homeroom class to Fridays and will now have Knight's Block
Monday to Thursday. We will be using Knight's Block as one of our
strategies to support learning gaps created by the pandemic.
June 12th will be the last day for
new content in courses as teachers will be finalizing assessment of student
learning and preparing report cards. From June 15th to 26 teachers
will be working on credit recovering, transition plans, mental health support
and helping students with educational plans over the summer.
A
schedule will also be sent out soon regarding pick up of materials such as
yearbooks, refunds, items left in lockers as well as dropping off school owned
materials students still may have.
I will be providing more details and answering
questions during June's virtual School Council meeting on Monday, June 8th at
7pm via google meets.
To attend this meeting you will need complete the
following RSVP form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeHC5yAVgdt2WgwIpQvlVwxsAR35-1KT9lb-Z3QPlFNVlUhKw/viewform?usp=sf_link
If
you have any issues with this form please contact Ms. Elliott one of our
Assistant Principals at (403) 777-6380 ext. 2402 or through email at rmelliott@cbe.ab.ca
As always if you have any questions or concerns please
do not hesitate to contact your child's teacher or myself at jsarrell@cbe.ab.ca
Jason Arrell
Principal, Queen Elizabeth High School
Calgary Board of Education | cbe.ab.ca
t | 403-777-6380
f | 403-777-7649
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