Inspiring Achievement

- Supporting LGBTQ Student Inclusion -

Our Catholic school communities strive to be places of compassion, inclusion and social justice for 2SLGBTQ+ students, staff and families.

• All of our secondary and senior elementary schools support growing Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) groups. In our K-6 schools, the Board supports requests from staff for more awareness level training on behalf of gender diverse students, staff and families. The goal is to champion enquiry, social justice and human dignity for all through safe, accepting and life affirming learning environments.

• During June, a PRIDE committee provided new learning resources, announcements, social media messaging and information on our approach to supporting 2SLGBTQ+ students and families and celebrating diversity within our system.

PROVIDING LEARNING AND WORKING SPACES THAT ENHANCE PRODUCTIVITY

In our continued work as a Deep Learning Board, we are striving to inspire and develop competencies which will engage and enrich student thinking and learning.

•We continued to work in Families of Schools to examine Pedagogical Practices, Learning Partnerships, Learning Environments, and meaningful ways to Leverage Digital while face to face or being in remote learning environments.

•We maintained an emphasis on working on the 6 Global Competencies, (Collaboration, Citizenship, Character, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication) which align with Learning Skills, Catholic Graduate Expectations, and the Anishnawbe Seven Grandfather Teachings.

•Unfortunately, we were unable to moderate Learning Designs due to supply teacher shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We continued to monitor our Long Term Plans in Literacy, Mathematics, Religious Education, Indigenous Education, FSL, Special Education, and Deep Learning as a means to be intentional in moving forward to support educators to best meet the needs of our students.

- Teachers -

Our available Resource Support staff continued to co-teach and create learning opportunities to support student thinking.

• In addition to co-teaching sessions, learning partnerships between classroom teachers and resource teachers allowed for notable initiatives to be accomplished. In the area of Literacy, Book Clubs were investigated at the Senior Elementary and Secondary panels in order to differentiate instruction, model a variety of reading strategies and allow for student voice and choice with their reading. In practice, Grade Eleven Indigenous Voices classes integrated differentiated book clubs into the Independent Study Unit.

• In specific Grade Three classrooms, the Math Resource teacher worked on multiplicative thinking as a means to build foundational math skills to strengthen multiplication concepts. The French Resource Teacher supported recently hired French Immersion teachers through the OPSBA Collaborative Inquiry investigating best practice with CEFR strategies.

- Learners -

• Supporting student achievement is fundamental and assistance from school teams along with our Resource teachers is key. Resource Teachers supported our learners in person and in an online learning environment with whole class and small group instruction and assessments in order to support student learning.

- Administrators -

Board Administration is fully involved in Student Achievement goals and ideals.

• Superintendents, Principals, and Vice-Principals continued to build leadership and capacity with a Deep Learning lens.

• Some of the key areas of focus last year that continued to be explored were how to build clarity and focus with School Improvement Plans, especially investigating the clarity and precision of evidence when monitoring individual SIPs.

•Equitable learning practices were investigated along with the concepts of how leaders are Activators, Collaborators, and Culture Builders.

-Student Support Persons (SSP) & Early Childhood Educators (ECE) -

SSPs and ECEs play a critical role in assisting our learners to flourish and grow within our Board.

• Professional Development sessions are offered to assist in their roles, with topics including building resiliency, technology, math interventions for struggling students, FASD, and Zones of Regulation.

• Our Board BMST Trainers were able to pivot quickly during the school closure and offered BMST training virtually when necessary.

- Enhancing our Mental Health Support –

Our Board continues to prioritize mental health support, resources and services for students through the work of our Board Mental Health Leader in collaboration with community partners (CCTB, LHINS, Health Unit) and provincially, School Mental Health Ontario (SMHO).

• During the last school year, we started the process of recruiting and hiring registered social workers and psychotherapists to create our own internal Mental Health Services team, to better meet the needs of our students, staff, and community.

• We offer brief mental health counselling and support services for all K-12 schools, crisis response services to schools during the school day, coordinated mental health fan-out support to schools following tragic events, student mental health promotion and prevention programming, and staff professional development.

• We offer brief mental health counselling and support services for all K-12 schools, crisis response services to schools during the school day, coordinated mental health fan-out support to schools following tragic events, student mental health promotion and prevention programming, and staff professional development.

- Attendance Matters-

In hopes to alleviate school absenteeism, the Attendance Matters committee gatherers to collaborate and determine system-wide planning. Through the use of evidence-based tools our Attendance team is able to determine factors contributing to Persistent Absenteeism including: school climate, school safety, community safety and parental access to basic living needs.

• The unprecedented impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on students and families have been profound. To this extent, the implementation of strategies to support families includes ongoing community collaboration ensuring access to

technology, food security, housing, and mental health supports.

• By increasing the likelihood of student engagement the overall Persistent Absenteeism during the 2020-2021 academic year referrals increased by 56% due to COVID-19.

- Violence Prevention & Threat Assessment-

The Board continues to support school and community initiatives and partnerships that prioritize staff and student safety and aim to prevent violence, respond to threats of violence in a timely and effective manner.

• The VTRA (Violence Threat Risk Assessment) model was pursued without success by our Board and other Boards in the region due to different levels of readiness among staff and community partners. Moving forward, our Board continues to follow protocols in place with police to maximize student safety and respond to threats of violence.

• The Board has also been an active partner in supporting classroom-based approaches to violence prevention in partnership with local organizations.

• This past year we supported teacher implementation (Heath & Phys Ed, Religious Education, Guidance) of the Fourth R Healthy Relationships/Violence Prevention Program for grades 7-9.

• The Program has been shown to be effective in building healthy relationship skills and lowering risks of gender-based violence.

- Three Year Plans -

The Long Term Plans were monitored last year at various points in the school year. Some initiatives had to be postponed due to the continual supply teacher shortage.

- New Pedagogies for Deeper Learning (NPDL) -

Our Deep Learning sessions were offered to sixty NTIP teachers last year, elements of pedagogical practice, learning partnerships, customized learning environments, and strategies to leverage digital were introduced representing all of our schools K-12 during the 2021-2022 school year.

• The 6 Global Competencies were examined in correlation to Learning Skills, the Catholic Graduate expectations and the Anishnawbe Grandfather teachings.

• Due to the shortage of supply teachers, the participants were unable to moderate their Learning Designs as part of their collaborative inquiries.

• During the summer, four educators participated in the NPDL Facilitators Institute, growing our Deep Learning team.

- Summer Learning Program -

In an effort to reduce the summer learning gap, a Ministry summer learning initiative was delivered.

• The three-week program, offered from July 4th to 22nd, It was open to all student levels and various needs with a specific focus on literacy and numeracy.

• In partnership with Creative Therapy, a Kindergarten Skills program was also offered during the last two weeks of August to help prepare our Kinders for a successful transition to school. In total, almost 50 accessed our Summer Programs.

-Summer School -

This year, Summer school was offered to students. In addition, a reach-ahead program was offered.

- Early Years -

School educator teams received a refresher training on the Sound Skills program.

-Indigenous Transitions Wellness Camp -

Indigenous Graduation Coaches and the incoming Grade 8 cohorts for our High Schools, came together for a transitions wellness camp.

• The focus of this two-week camp was supporting the mental health and wellness of the students and their families.

• Youth explored themes of self-care, cultural wellness, and the places in the community where they can access support. The camp also involved our new Mental Health Workers.

-French Immersion Summer Camp-

We were able to offer a one-week Summer Camp as a means to re-engage Elementary French Immersion students with oral language strategies along with the exploration of French Culture during the month of July. We had students participate from Grades 1-6.

- Empower Reading -

The evidence-based Empower Reading program is an early intervention program developed to assist children and adolescents with diffi culties in reading and spelling, into independent, and flexible learners.

• Our Board has offered this program for over 15 years and we’re excited to train 6 new teachers to deliver the decoding program in the upcoming school year.

• We also will be training 4 teachers in senior elementary and high school, in the Empower Comprehension Program.

-Project SEARCH -

A Unique business-led, one-year, transition-to-work program for young people with developmental or intellectual disabilities.

• During the 2020-2021 planning year, we partnered with Thunder Bay Regional Health Science Centre and Community Living Thunder Bay to initiate the project.

• A site at TBRHSC was established, student selection occurred and staff was hired. All student interns will be ready to start in September 2022.

- Learning and Innovation Project -

The Learning and Innovation Project Fund (K-12) was a Ministry grant to support professional development, collaboration, learning, and sharing of effective practices.

• The 10 projects, funded through LIFT, were framed around components of Deep Learning and supported one of the Ministry’s priorities.

- Digital Human Library (dHL) -

A partnership with dHL provided teacher professional development opportunities and resource access.

• Included in our membership are opportunities to video conference with experts, explore virtual tours and virtual reality, attend live streaming events, and join social innovation projects.

• Professional learning and development sessions were offered to our Teacher Librarians, NTIP teachers along with our School Administrators.

- 3-Year French Plan -

• In the FSL Plan, the resumption of the Grade 12 DELF was able to be completed with 85 Grade 12 students successfully challenging this certifi cation.

• Two pilot projects were launched in partnership with OPBSA. Both these initiatives support Goal 3 from the Ministry of Education to increase student, educator, parent and community engagement in FSL.

- Board Improvement Plan (BIPSA) -

Provincial wide Board Improvement Plans are benefi cial in refi ning and assisting with student achievement and well-being for students and staff.

• With input and assistance from Principals and Student Achievement team members, our BIPSA provides a roadmap of ways to progress and grow in improvement and future planning.

• As mandated by the Ministry, our Board is working on the development of a Board Improvement and Equity Plan (BIEP) which will replace the BIPSA. The BIEP will be launched during THE 202223 school year.

-EQAO -

During the 2021-2022 school year OSSLT testing resumed and the test was successfully administered at secondary sites in our Board.

• EQAO Gr. 9 Math along with Language and Numeracy in Grades 3 and 6 were resumed. It is important to note that there were significant changes in the administration and content of the test which will make it difficult to make comparisons to other years’ data.

• Attached are our Regional EQAO Results and our Gr. 3 and 6 EQAO Results.