Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome back to another year!  I hope my New Year message finds you well and that this past summer was wonderful for you and your family.  Below are a few items that I hope are of interest to you as we settle into our new school year.

School Readiness

I would like to thank our Facilities team which, once again, has worked their magic this past summer completing a number of renovations and upgrades, performed a deep cleaning of all sites, and put their trademark polish on the floors and countertops. I’ve been in a few schools already this year and they are looking fabulous.  I also want to thank our Information Technology team that has been busy behind the scenes as well working to streamline and upgrade a number of technology services to provide a better, more efficient learning environment in our buildings.

I recently met with our administrators and management staff in our annual start-up meeting and you could feel the excitement in the room. Our team is energized and looking forward to welcoming your children back to school next week.

Ministry of Education and Child Care (MECC)

The MECC is focused on a number of areas this coming year including Child Care initiatives, continuing its work in Curriculum Redesign and an emphasis on student Literacy as a core foundation for student success.  If you are interested in learning more about these topics as well as other MECC initiatives, I encourage you to visit their MECC website.

Saanich Schools – Strategic Plan 2022-2027

It is exciting to see our Board’s Strategic Plan 2022-2027 be a critical point of reference for the work that we are doing in Saanich.  If you haven’t had a chance to read it please take a few minutes to do so.  It is relatively short and has been written in a storybook format to increase its readability.  The four themes of Literacy, Indigenous Learner Success, Mental Health & Wellness, and Global Citizenship have been strategically chosen as key areas of focus as we continue in our goal of improving student success.

Health and Wellness

We continue to take our direction on all health-related items from Island Health, the Provincial Health Officer and the BC Centre for Disease Control ensuring that our schools are safe, welcoming places for students and staff.  We are fortunate to have received some recent rain that has diminished the smoky skies from the hundreds of wildfires throughout the province. At this time, we have not received any air quality alerts or directions on other items from Island Health for the new school year.  Certainly, any directives that have an impact on school operations will be shared out.

The Power of Why – My professional blog

If you are new to Saanich Schools you may not be aware that I write a professional blog called The Power of Why where I talk about educational research, leadership and professional interests. My posts are a quick read and hopefully provide you with some insight into my thinking and planning. My most recent post is entitled Taking a Very Personal Risk and shines a light on an experience I went through this past year. It was a great reminder to me about what our students go through. I hope you take a few minutes to read it. Should you be interested in receiving notifications about future posts, there is a place on my website to add your email address.

We look forward to welcoming your children next week for what looks like an exciting year ahead.

Sincerely,

Dave Eberwein, Superintendent & CEO, Saanich Schools