Rocky View Schools reaffirms commitment to innovation and successful learners – AirdrieToday.com

Rocky View Schools (RVS) reiterated its commitment to fostering student success, innovation and resiliency with a review of its 2019-2023 Four-Year Plan, Innovators by Design at the May 20 Board of Trustees meeting.

The document plays a pivotal role in informing the division’s budget and learning outcomes, according to Superintendent Greg Luterbach.

“Our budget is driven by the goals and strategies of the four-year plan and we are working to foster innovators in their learning journey,” he said at the meeting.

The division has taken steps to support the four-year plan through carefully crafted priorities, designated learning time and developing a budget for resource supports.

“We want to make sure we have a budget that can actually bring the four-year plan to life,” Luterbach said.

Priorities in the plan include student engagement, inclusion, instruction practices and making learning visible.

The goals include connecting to passions, interests and people that foster students’ ownership over their learning; ensuring students achieve their potential with the outcome of literacy, numeracy and the ability to acquire core competencies; navigating successfully as global citizens with the desired outcome of seeing students who are healthy, safe and resilient who value diversity, cultures and traditions.

“We continue to look at those goals and outcomes and see if these are priorities and how do we bring these priorities ultimately to life,” Luterbach said.

The Rocky View Schools Four-Year Plan, Innovators by Design is currently in year three of its rotation. The goals included in the plan are reviewed annually by RVS staff and trustees against the outcomes and performance measures set out in the four-year Plan, said Luterbach.

Through the review, the division can identify areas of progress, areas that require more attention and account for factors that may have had an impact on the school year. From there, the division determines areas of focus for the school year ahead and if any changes need to be made to the measures included in the plan.

The plan has created consistency in RVS while allowing the ability to adapt and pivot year-to-year, according to Luterbach. The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges for year three of the plan, he added, but overall there was a clear commitment to the goals and outcomes detailed in the document.

He noted that engaging with key stakeholders – including staff and families – for feedback and ideas has played a critical role in forming the district’s four-year plan.

A newly introduced survey has involved staff, students and families and is designed to directly understand how the plan is working. The data will help inform the division and its decisions.

“What we want to know is, this is what we think, this is what some of the data says, but do kids tell us they’re more engaged, do staff see their kids being more engaged, do parents see their child be more engaged? What the lived reality for those groups is is more important,” Luterbach said.

Based on feedback, RVS has seen increased ownership of learning by students, increased focus on literacy and numeracy and increased use of an inclusive lens to examine school practices, Luterbach said. These changes have been driven in part by the four-year plan, he added, but also through the school’s playbook and workbook processes.

The playbook involves the process of looking at goals and engaging with families, while the workbook reflects the product that emerges from the four-year plan.

“We had a strong message from our schools that we’re going on the right path,” Luterbach said.

The superintendent added that many stakeholders felt major changes were not appropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for the most part, the goals and outcomes listed in the four-year plan remained relevant and can adapt to individual school’s cultures.

The four-year plan is required by Section 10 of the Fiscal Planning and Transparency Act. The document requires organizations under the jurisdiction of government ministries to “prepare and give to the minister responsible for the accountable organization a business plan and annual report for each fiscal year, in the form, at a time and containing the information, acceptable to the responsible minister.” 

The four-year plan was to be presented to the Minister of Education, Adriana Lagrange, by May 31.

Ward 4 trustee Norma Lang said based on some of the survey questions provided, she wants to see a deeper dive into how results are reported. For example, if a question includes options like “always,” “sometimes,” “often” or “never,” she said a breakdown of statistics should be provided.

Lang said she was happy to hear the four-year plan is not locked in place and hopes the data from the survey will be used to inform improvements in the division.

“I’m happy that we can try this out and continue to fine-tune it if it’s needed,” she said.