Blog Posts

_{O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.}

_{— William Shakespeare, The Tempest}

At Kandal, we are committed to strengthening our family partnerships in our school community. It’s no secret the more parents are involved in their children’s lives, both at home and school, the more they will be in the ‘know’ about how best to support their children. To this end, our kindergarten and grade 1 teachers and our English Language Learners (ELL) teachers initiated the “Parents as Partners” program.

Earlier this school year I made the commitment to report back on what I had learned as a consequence of my “shadow a student” experience.  Listening to students has been a key part of my practice over the last few years, and shadowing a student is the most recent iteration of this learning journey.

Welcome to spring term! I hope everyone had an enjoyable March Break and is ready for the fun and business of term 3. It is wonderful to be coming to school in the sunshine!

As we head into the final term of this school year, there are a few reminders to be made.

1) Check out our school calendar often it is updated monthly with school and district wide events, or as events come up. Your child's individual classroom events will be communicated to you via planners, seesaw or class newsletters, etc, so it is important to check those things too.

Keeping the district’s focus on equity in mind, the Dr. Thomas A. Swift Elementary school community has taken on a small project of our own. Together with a couple of other elementary schools, we are using picture books to dive into topics of diversity and equity.

Earlier this school year, leaders in our organization had the opportunity to learn from renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Shimi Kang on the subject of mental health and wellbeing.

In our school district's four-year strategic plan, we have targeted improved early learning as a means of impacting student success. At Mathxwí Elementary, all primary classrooms have committed their year to explore practical ways to improve early literacy learning.

“Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Greetings McMillan Families!

Noticing a shift in literacy instruction across the district? Wonder what is going on in the classroom down the hall?