Monday Memo Musings

Good-bye March, hello April! As it has been each week, for the passed two weeks, there are more changes and updates. I will share two documents with you. One is the Expectation on Assessment and Determination of final mark Covid Grade 9-12. It stays relatively the same with a few more details for high schools.  Document number two deals with handling of materials. The division would love it if no materials came back however, that doesn't work for us.  Plastics are not to be used. Paper envelopes are best or file folders or nothing. We must put a big sticky on the students work that says do not handle for four days. There are some very specific safety precautions for yourself.  The Determination of marks is not shareable yet, the materials return will be sent out right away.  Government of Alberta made an announcement on a Saturday ( seriously, Saturday!) regarding temporary funding adjustment to K-12 education funding. Details concerning this will come out later today.

Let us thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your calm and collectedness (new word)during the past week. You really are the embodiment of smart, caring, forward thinking staff. We know things will get dicier before they get better but we will handle things with class and grace like always.  Please care for yourself. Stay off the news. Watching the news is a recipe for total depression. If you do watch, watch for a short time then go be productive in other ways. Take hot showers, cook good meals, take your vitamins, go walking ( like Reme gives Alex a choice). You are always so kind to others, be kind to yourself.  Finally today, we get to quickly touch base with our students and set them on their pstsh to completing this year. You've got to impart to students that this is a time, when they are confined to their homes, to jump ahead with their academics. (or in some cases get back on track) With our guidance they will end the year off with successes. Our grads will

Each time we read the news we discover new education cuts. Outreach was not left untouched. The details of those cuts will come tomorrow at our LTM. We handle things like this with calm. We are Outreach staff, our kids float through their lives handling the ups and downs and so do we. Can't wait to have a chat with Mike and find out more details. Those details will be relayed in our staff meeting on Friday morning in La Crete. Where are the next cuts? Seems all the vulnerable students funding has been cut, who could possibly be left?  Staffing- Who is going where? Anne Monday- High Level Tuesday- Leadership meeting with Chad Wednesday- High Level Thursday- Fort Friday- La Crete staff meeting Chad High Level on Monday. Allan Rainbow on Wednesday. Linda High Level Tuesday.  What's Up Thank you for doing the accountability pillar with our students.  Accomodations- I have only one request for accommodations on the diploma from Rainbow Lake. Were there m

Doing this Blog grounds me for the week . I am hoping it assists you in knowing what's going on as well. It is beyond slippery out there today. I walked to work this morning and perfected the penguin shuffle. You work a whole new set of muscles doing the penguin shuffle. If we know it's slippery, we move in a different way. The same analogy can be used in life. If you know you are treading on slippery terrain then you adjust your actions accordingly.  Slippery territory for us, in Outreach, can be a student with a loss, a student who has been through an illness, a volatile parent, a colleague who is having a  terrible, horrible, no good very bad week (Gotta love that book). At times you can just see it in someone's face then we adjust accordingly. This happened to me twice last week. Once where I was going to give a girl a bit of trouble.... I saw her face/eyes as I started in, she was a mess. I adjusted my plan of action. Instead, I just listened for 45 minutes. Toda