This short month was filled with affirmations and celebrations!
Many of the trustees started off the week before Christmas at the second annual Women in Politics dinner. This was a fabulous opportunity to discuss, in a casual setting, how we’ve done over the last year. A way to make a place at the table and offer encouragement and to lift each other in our roles. It was a very affirming gathering and we look forward to next year.
Our all-day meeting day, Operations, Committee of the Whole and Education proved to be a long day, as we added Agenda Setting on to the end in order to fit everything in to the week. My thanks to everyone for pulling through, and of course to Erica for making our temporary board room workable. There was a wonderful break in the midst of the day, as Pender Harbour Senior Secondary Choir students came to regale us with carols! Thank you to Ms. Douglas for bringing such amazing talent to our little room at the Sechelt Learning Center. Sadly, I did not get a hippopotamus for Christmas, even though that song was in my head for the next week and a half!
I had a meeting with the Chair of the Gibsons & District Public Library, Janet Hodgkinson, to discuss what the library does to engage our students:
- Recently, the alternate school students were shown how to access databases and were delighted to discover that they can not only use their devices at the library, they can borrow e-books and audiobooks. The message is that the library is a safe and comfortable place in which they can hang out. Many of them now have library memberships or have reactivated their out-of-date cards.
- Younger students frequently go to the library with their teachers to have a story time with our children’s librarian, and their teacher often takes stacks of books back to the classroom.
- Outside of school hours, the Gibsons Public Library offers an LGTBQ book club, as well as book clubs for teens and tweens. There are many other activities for children, ranging from babies to teens, all of which encourage literacy, digital literacy and numeracy, and encourage self-expression and self-esteem. The library has also recently lowered the age for students to get their own library card without parents being involved.
It was delightful to hear first-hand from one of our community partners. Thank you Janet and all the staff at Gibsons Public Library for all you do to help our students!
Through-out those last few weeks was of course the most wonderful part of the school year… concerts, performances and holiday activities! There is nothing quite like watching those bright-eyed, happy faces up at the front of the gym performing their little hearts out! I hope you all had a wonderful winter break, even if there were no hippopotamuses!