Back-to-school season is almost here and some school board officials in London, Ont., are getting back into the swing of things in preparing for another first day back.
Members of the Thames Valley District School Board’s (TVDSB) leadership team gathered at RCB Place London on Tuesday to kick off preparations for the upcoming school year while “reflecting on the successes of last year.”
The meeting falls on the heels of Monday’s announcement from the Ontario government about providing new student support and updating the current curriculum starting this fall.
According to the government, these actions will refocus the development of foundational skills in reading, writing and math, and are supported by an additional $700 million in base education funding, $109 million in a new strategy to boost literacy rates, and the hiring of 2,000 more educators.
“Now we have the roadmap forward,” said Mark Fisher, TVDSB director of education. “What we really need to do to make sure that every single student in our district is going to be able to read by the time they leave Grade 3, we have a renewed focus on numeracy, (and) we know kids need to be able to solve problems, so we’re anxious to dig into that work as well.”
According to the province, beginning this September, all publicly funded school boards will be required to adopt provincial student achievement priorities and metrics to:
- Help students improve EQAO scores.
- Prepare students for future success to “raise graduation rates, encourage more students to participate in job skills programs and take senior math and science courses.”
- Improve student engagement and awareness of mental health supports.
Additionally, Ontario is also investing over $71 million to launch the Math Action Achievement Plan to further support students facing challenges with math.
Stephen Lecce, minister of education, said in a statement that “students deserve a stable and enjoyable school year with the full school experience of extracurriculars, clubs and more that build real life and job skills that go beyond the classroom.”
Fisher added that “the Thames Valley District School Board, like every school board in the province, has room for growth here (and) the ministry has committed a lot of funds for that.”
Speaking with Global News on Tuesday, he said one of their key focuses for this year, especially the first three days back to school, is also building relationships between students and staff.
“We know that in order for students to be successful, they need to feel confident, they need to feel comfortable at school, and they need to know that there’s a caring adult somewhere in the building,” he said. “That’s going to be our focus to start the year is to really lay that solid foundation in and then dive deeply into student achievement.”
Fisher added that the school board’s enrolment is also bursting at the seams.
“We started with about 79,000 kids when I was here in 2019. We have almost 85,000 students now,” he said. “We’re now the fourth-largest school district in the province.”
With four new and upcoming school projects underway, Fisher expressed “lots of excitement as we return back this year.”
– with files from Global News’ Mike Stubbs.