Administrative Team
Principal | Mr. Watson
Assistant Principal | Ms. H. Ly
Administrative Secretary & Bookkeeper | Mrs. Cinnamon
Teaching Staff
Dear Parents,
We have completed the process of staffing for the 2019-20 school year. This was finished in the final weeks of the summer. The administration team would like to thank parents and school staff for sharing their thoughts with us, through one on one conversations, our School Council meetings and through survey input. What we heard through the engagement process is that limiting our class size was important and maintaining straight grades was preferable.
Given our present budget and student projections for 2019-20 and understanding it is important we limit class size and maintain straight grades, we considered different options and their impacts on the school. We took your input and feedback, along with other factors and constraints very seriously when making our final decisions, which include the following changes at Marion Carson School for the 2019-20 school year:
FSL will not be offered in the 2019-20 school year
Conversations with parents and staff indicate that French as a second language (FSL) is important but the surveys indicate it is the lowest priority of those considered. We, therefore, will not be offering FSL in 2019-2020 school year. That being said, we have asked Mrs. Currie, our French specialist to remain at our school in another capacity, Gr 4-6 Literacy. Having smaller breakout groups to reduce class sizes was a priority for both teachers and parents. If the opportunity presents itself, Mrs. Currie will be asked again in the future to teach FSL.
Physical Education Specialist position will be reduced to 0.3 Full Time Equivalent
In a similar manner, having a physical education specialist has been very popular with students, staff and parents but survey results also rank supporting student academic needs in small groups as a priority. This specialist position will remain in the school but will be reduced to 0.3 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) – about 1.5 days a week, from the present 0.6 FTE. We will work to schedule equal P.E. time for all classes with the specialist if possible.
The 0.3 FTE Music and Early Literacy position will be changed to a 0.2 FTE Music position
The extra music teacher added to our roster this past school year allowed us to provide music an equal number of times to all students over a two week period. During the 2018-19 school year we only needed 0.2 FTE to provide equal music for all students which left us with some extra teacher time. We used the additional time for early literacy support for some of our younger learners. In the survey, school staff ranked this higher than parents did. Unfortunately we have not been able to find another means of providing equitable music time in addition to the extra early literacy time so this position will provide music only. From conversations with families, we know that you value having a skilled music teacher at Marion Carson. This will continue to be a priority in the fall.
2019-2020 Staff Roster
Below you will see our staff roster as it stands at this point. There are a few new names you may not recognize and one position that is still considered vacant. We hope to learn soon how these vacancies will be filled. Please know that we will update you further in the fall of changes made.
| Class / Subject | Staff Member |
|---|
| Kindergarten | Ms. Dolan
Ms. Yang
|
| Grade 1 | Ms. Saretsky
Mrs. Sheppard
Miss Keller
Ms. L. Wu
|
| Grade 2 | Mrs. Schnell / Miss Dolan
Mrs. Buller / Mrs. Freestone
Ms. W. Zhang
Mr. Wiskar
|
Grade 3
| Ms. Lowe
Mrs. Blair
Ms. Eastly
Ms. M. Zhang
|
Grade 4
| Ms. Hay
Mrs. Willows
Ms. Wang
Ms. Wilcock (On Leave) / Ms. Edge
|
Grade 5
| Ms. Hymers
Mrs. Hoglund
|
Grade 6
| Mrs. McGown / Mrs. Campbell
Mr. Wiedener
|
Early Literacy
Physical Education | Mrs. Currie
Vacant |
| Music | Ms. McPhail, Mrs. Malkin |
With sadness and grateful hearts we thank Ms. Wu, Mrs. Stevenson and Ms. Sterling for all their contributions these past years. Their smiles, laughter and teaching skill will be missed! They have moved to other schools in the CBE for the 2019-20 school year.
Support Staff
There are also changes to some of our much needed support staff. Below is the roster:
| Position | Staff Member |
|---|
| Library Assistant | Ms. Roth |
| Education Assistants | Mrs. Boldt
Ms. Leask
Mrs. Keeler
Mrs. Shellborn
|
| English Language Learner Assistants | Mrs. Wong
Mrs. Keeler
|
| School Assistants | Mrs. Bulley
Mrs. Schimpf
Ms. Guo
Ms. A. Li
|
| Lunchroom Supervisors | Mrs. Bryan
Mrs. Bulley
Ms. Guo
Mrs. Elefante
Mrs. Schimpf
Mrs. Leask
Mrs. McDougall
Ms. Shellborn
Mrs. Huang
Mrs. Siddiqi |
| School Secretary/ Office Assistant | Mrs. Gascoine |
| Facility Operators | Mr. Murray
Mr. Evangelista |
We would like to thank Mrs. Akbar and Ms. Yuan for their contributions over the years and wish them well in their future endeavours. Special thanks also go to Mrs. Cardall, Ms. Zhou, Ms. McClintock and Ms. Renaud for stepping in to support our students for part of this past school year. We will miss them all!
Our commitment is to be responsive to student needs through our staffing and budgeting processes. We will update you of further changes in the fall.
