Fort Assiniboine School: Enhancing Student Success Through Community Engagement

1. Fort Assiniboine School External Team Observation Summary

2. Fort Assiniboine School is focused on individual success • Staff has aligned results analysis with the needs of students to set goals • There is a focus on building skills • Learning lab concept supports students in need • Individualized and adaptive instruction • The teachers teach to meet the varied and diverse learning styles of the students. • Differentiated activities allow students to do their personal best. • Teachers plan based on the needs of each student in their class • Teachers assess daily the pace of their class and adjust instruction to meet the pace • Peer support is encouraged and taught • Teachers teach students how to collaborate effectively. • Formative assessment strategies are prevalent in many teacher practices • Teachers provide students with a perspective of the world beyond the hamlet.

3. Fort Assiniboine School is integral to the community • High level of loyalty to the school and community of all stakeholders. • High level of school council, parent and community involvement • Involved in the Planning process • Planning for the school’s future • Volunteers and coaches • Partnerships with community businesses, organizations and Woodland’s County • Joint use of facilities • The LIBRARY is awesome!!! • Arena, fair grounds, ball diamonds • Use of the school building by the community • Traditions and legacy • Alumni tournament • Grad pictures, Bear Pride, 2nd, 3rd ... Generation students

4. Fort Assiniboine School cares about its students • Daily routines set a positive tone • The announcements inform and presuppose a good day • Attendance monitoring tells students that their presence is important • Great relationships between teachers and students • Students feel Acceptance and Belonging • Students genuinely feel like their teachers care • Confidence to approach staff or support and help • Staff make themselves available to help, any time of day • Teachers and staff talk with each other about the needs of students • Staff are empathic to the students’ lives and circumstances • They understand where these kids are coming from and what they need It’s a family!

5. External Team Suggestions • Inspire Organizational Trust: “What you do speaks more loudly than what you say” • Build Trustworthy Systems • Consider a method or structure to formalize the school discipline and or behaviour procedures to create greater consistencies of expectations and consequences throughout the school • Consider Administrative ‘presence’. • Be visible in classrooms and hallways... In all parts of the school • Organize Administrative teaching time to facilitate support for others and to demonstrate instructional leadership.

6. External Team Suggestions • Clarify Purpose: It is time to collectively revisit the vision, mission and purpose statements • These statements need to lead, not just reflect the practices of the staff. • “A clear understanding of purpose is needed in order to make work meaningful and thereby attract, retain and motivate outstanding people” (Jim Collins – Good to Great) • Focus the school and community on Teaching and Learning.

7. External Team Suggestions • Align Systems: Choose Wildly Important Goals • What critical activities, if done with excellence, will have the greatest impact on results? • Increase prominence of the Assessment for Learning Strategies • Consider ways to improve time on task in junior and senior high • Reduce the movement of students in the hallways etc • Engage students in the first minutes of each class – make them want to be there • Consider adjusting staff deployment • Support at risk students at all levels • Support students in independent programs • Increase teacher, parent and student ‘ownership’ of IPPs

8. External Team Suggestions • Unleash Talent: “Communicate to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves” (Steven R. Covey) • Clarify expectations and accountability • Develop an orientation program for new staff. • As a staff, review expectations and procedures regularly • ‘Coles Notes’ staff handbook • Affirm worth and potential • Select teachers to serve as leaders for PD, Technology, Special Education, Extra-curricular , online Learning, Events coordination, etc... And give them the authority to act • Explore the potential of a junior/senior high music club

9. External Team Suggestions • Unleash Talent: “Communicate to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves” (Steven R. Covey) • Clear the Path – Be a source of help • Encourage and facilitate broader utilization of the AISI Assessment coaches... And associated applications of Assessment for Learning Strategies. • Encourage and facilitate broader utilization of the Learning Technologies Coordinator.

10. The External Team Thanks: • The staff… • for the hospitality and openess • Mr. Menduk and Mr. Kaplan • for their professionalism throughout the process • Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. O’Brien… • For keeping us busy and organized • The parents… • for their willingness to participate and contribute to the school’s growth • The students… • for welcoming our presence and for their honesty

11. That’s all, for now… Any Questions?