KISIPATNAHK SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S 2011-2012 ANNUAL REPORT
SCHOOL STAFF ORIENTATION:
The school staff had one week of orientation as to the Kisipatnahk School Society Priorities:
1. Delivery of the Alberta Education Program within a 10 month Long Range Plan
framework.
2. Review of School Policies and Anti-bullying Initiatives.
3. Emphasis in Maskwacis Language and Cultural Approaches
4. Reporting that conforms to Four Nations Education First Nation Success
5.
Initiatives: PowerSchool, Literacy and Numeracy, Maskwacis Life Skills training program
Raise School Standards As Per Kisipatnahk School Society Strategic Plan: Monthly
Attendance, computer Skill, and junior High career preparation levels
ALBERTA EDUCATION GRADE LEVEL PROGRAM
The teachers from Grade 1 to 9 are using a ten month template to make sure
that key parts of the grade Level programs are delivered during the School year.
Progress is reported to parents via the Parent-Teacher Conference on Report
Card Review days three times per year. We deliver a rich Cree language and
cultural program and had some field trips to help students understand the
residential school experience of their parents and grandparents.
SCHOOL POLICIES
The Kisipatnahk School Society members met several times during the year to
update the school policies. Copies of these policies were discussed by the staff
members and electronic versions of the policies were emailed to all staff
members several times during the year. Since we have had 9 new staff
members during the school year, the policies have been valuable in orienting
our staff as to haw to deal with cries issues and misbehaviours.
The policies are reinforced by a variety or Reporting Forms, Friday Morning
General Assembly, daily announcements during the daily opening ceremonies
and almost daily staff meetings at the end of the day once student leave with
the buses.
An area of great emphasis has been to create a safe and caring school
environment with monthly values that are in both Cree and English. Students
are rewarded when they do good. If they misbehave we have several
approaches: referral for counselling, student mediation of conflicts, meeting
with parents for repeat or violent bullying offenders.
This year, our parents and school staff had several Anti-Bullying Workshops
cosponsored by the School Society Board, Health and other Departments. The
most recent workshop on Anti-Bullying for parents and staff was especially
effective. We now have a schedule to promote specific social skills on a year
round timetable. The staff and students are responding positively to this new
system. If continued next year, we should dramatically cut down on anti-social
behaviours. Particularly helpful in eliminating drug and violent behaviours has
been the Society’s closed campus policy. Students may not leave during the day
unless picked up by an adult. We have eliminated the effort of strangers coming
to the school to peddle drugs or promotion of student gangs. We kept two
students who tried to form gangs in the bud. Some of our staff have
volunteered to ride the bus and this has helped cut out the usual misbehaviours
of the past few years. To date only four students have been suspended for no
more than a week off the bus.
Cyber bullying, especially among the younger girls has been a recent problem.
Once again we helped nip this in the bud by having students discuss issues in a
circle, staff intervention and RCMP presentations. Initially the girls tried to
involve their parents but once they were informed of the issues, the parents put
a stop to cyber bullying and even cut some gils off from use of Facebook at
home. It seems that the girls have been getting on Facebook at home at the
early hours of the morning and that some parents have done little to monitor
the cyber activities of their children since they were unaware of the problems
until the school called them. Girls tend to cyber bully other girls and gossip
about each other, while boys tend to go for the cyber sports, games or porn
sites. We do not allow Facebook or some non-academic cyber sites at the school
but parents can help us by monitoring the internet activities of their children at
home. We ask parents to shut downall cyber activities after 9:30 PM. A major
fight between junior high girls broke out because of disagreements posted over
Facebook at home.
The chart below shows the total major student misbehaviours at our school.
I’m happy to report that parents have really helped us to cut down on the
number of incidents in comparison to past years or even the beginning of this
school year. The greatest amount of incidents occured at the beginning of the
school year or immediately after major vacations during the school year. Also,
our statistics show that less the 3% of our students generate over 85% of the
daily school misbehaviours. Also, more boys than girls tend to be involved with
repeated incidents in each of the 9 category of misbehaviours:
August 2011 to March 2012 KISIPATNAHK SCHOOL SUMMARY REPORT:
TYPE
SCHOOL
TOTAL
Bullying/threats
125
B:101/ G:22
Class
61
Disruptions
B:48/G:12
Disrespect
113
B:91/G:22
Fighting
41
B:33/G:17
Noncompliance
154
Ucooperative
B:116/G:35
Other
38
B:27/G:11
Off Task
13
B:9/G:4
Substance
6
Infractions
B:3/G:3
Weapons
3
Knives
3/0
Totals
B:431/G:126
TOTAL
School
INCIDENTS:
555
N-GRADE 3
GRADE 4-6
GRADE 7-9
27
B:26/G:1
26
B:23/G:3
20
B:14/G:6
18
B:16/G:2
35
B:25/G:10
14
B:11/G:3
3
B:2/G:1
0
B:/G:
1
B:1/G:
B:118/G:26
N-Gr. 3
144
63
B:46/G:17
16
B:9/G:7
28
B:19/G:9
14
B:10/G:4
54
B:39/G:15
13
B:10/G:3
6
B:4/G:2
4
B:1/G:3
2
B:2/G:
B:140/G:56
Gr.4-6
196
35
B:29/G:6
19
B:17/2
65
B:58/G:7
9
B:7/G:2
65
B:52/G:13
10
B:8/G:2
B:/G:
2
B:2/G:0
0
B:/G:
B:173/G32:
Gr. 7-9
205
For 7 months:
Aug to February
TOTAL
INCIDENTS
Just for last 3
months:
JAN-MARCH
154
69
36
49
Notice that the Boys tend to get into many more misbehaviours than the Girls.
Our sports teams and fun activities as well as our rewards for good behaviours
have dramatically cut down the number of incidents since the New Year.
Parents are encouraged to help our Elders and school staff by urging the boys to
get along with others and play fair during recess time or by sitting at their place
while the bus is moving. Some students who do not get enough sleep tend to
get into more problems than those who do get enough sleep and rest.
Whenever parents break up or children have problems at home, some students
take it particularly hard and lash out at others for short periods of time until
things settle down with the parents and relatives.
Spirit Winds staff, Elders, Health Department, Counselling services and the
RCMP Liaison have been very helpful in helping us deal with students who
consider suicide or are extremely depressed or violent. We only had three
incidents of extreme violence and each of these was started in the community
and came to the school. The recent emphasis in giving students systematic
social skills in dealing with conflict and communicating with others in positive
ways has helped cut down on incidents.
MASKWACIS LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL APPROACHES
At the school we have two fulltime Cree teachers who deliver the Cree program
and help organize our Friday Assemblies. We also deliver Life Skills to our
students through the Four Nation Maskwacis Life Skills three year project. This
work is also reinforced by involvement of Loraine and Harvey Raine as well as
some Spirit Winds Workshops. Our older students attended the traditional
parenting workshop and other cultural events hosted by the Health
Department.
We had students from Grade 4 to 9 join in noontime hand drum sessions and
have had numerous presentations in Cree at our Friday Assemblies. Grade 7s
have done the most work in traditional arts and crafts activities.
FOUR NATIONS EDUCATION: FNMI Success Initiatives The four Directors of
Education coordinate the INAC funding to raise quality standards at each of the
four local School Society schools. We receive funds for our Literacy, Numeracy
SmartBoards, technology upgrades, PowerSchool and internet supports. The
principals and Coordinators attend regular inter-school meetings. This year the
Directors and Principals are encouraged to bring 2012-2013 School Calendars
that are more coordinated so that we can organize more inter-school workshops
and sports activities.
We have dramatically raised our use of computers as aids for teaching of Math
and Reading. Our Nursery to Grade 4 classes use Jolly Phonics to raise our basic
student reading levels. The Mathletics program has improved our Math levels
from Grade 3 to 9. Some of our students in Grade 4 and 5 scored among the top
50 math students in Canada. Our students compete with students from over 100
countries around the world.
Another initiative is to have the staffs of the four schools coordinate more and
more activities such as professional development, sharing of daily practices and
in the area of sports teams. To date this year we hosted four inter-school
tournaments for Grades 4-6 and Grades 7-9.
KISIPATNAHK SCHOOL SOCIETY STRATEGIC PLAN:
Last August and Fall, the Kisipatnahk School Society Board updated its three
year Strategic Plan as well as its Policies. Many of the major activities at the
school are based in implementing the Strategic Plan. The Parent Advisory
Committee meets every third Monday during the Month to deal with fundraising at the Sampson Bingo hall and other school-community activities.
The Strategic Plan has provided for various cultural, sports and academic
activities for this school year. As a result of the Plan, new playground equipment
was added and the school’s main focus has been on dealing with anti-bullying.
By having the PowerSchool Sorfware we are now able to document more
closely misbehaviours and academic successes of our students on both an
individual, class and school basis. This 2011-2012 school year is giving us a base
set of information that we can compare during the 2012-2013 school year.
Therefore next year we can share data that compares last year’s incident Report
with this year’s Report.