| The Surrey Board of Education, in accordance with the School Act, and relevant provincial legislation, supports and is committed to the concept of designing school calendars that promote excellence of instruction and optimal achievement for all students and augment efficiencies in the running of schools. Schools and school communities are encouraged to take into account the nature of their schools in order to maximize learning opportunities for their students. |
1. | INTENT1.1. | This policy is intended to provide direction to the Surrey Board of Education, school principal, school staff, school Parents’ Advisory Councils (PACs) in the process of approving local school calendars for an individual school, ensuring that those local calendars would be in compliance with the School Act and Regulations, and all appropriate collective agreements. | 1.2. | The school principal will ensure that a consultation process is in place for establishing principles for the local school calendar for each school that wishes to adopt such a calendar. | 1.3. | This policy is designed to allow for the initial development of several pilot projects to be in place for three years to gather data based on the principles outlined below, to guide possible implementation in other schools. |
|
2. | PRINCIPLES| Any recommended alterations to the school calendar must be educationally sound and focus on the improvement of student achievement and success. | | Any recommended alteration must take into account the impact on students, parents and staff. | | There may be only minimal cost to School District No. 36 (Surrey) in the adoption of a local calendar. | | Requests to alter the existing school calendar must be filed by the principal and given to the superintendent, with supporting documentation from staff and parents, no later than the last week of January, with the exception of this initial year of implementation. | | Any local school calendar proposal must ensure that there is provision for a common school break for the first four weeks of August, as well as for the two weeks over Winter Break, as defined by the Ministry of Education calendar. |
|
3. | PROCESS3.1. | Parents are encouraged to be involved and active in the decision-making process through their PACs, with input from school staff, the SPC and in coordination with the school principal. Regulations to the policy will provide some guidance. | 3.2. | The consultation process is designed to ensure a majority of parents, through their PACs, decide what appropriate principles for local school calendars should be adopted for their school. The process would be expected to develop a consensus on the question of local school calendars. | 3.3. | Before proceeding with any proposal, the Surrey Board of Education must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence of broad discussion among the school community, staff, Surrey Teachers’ Association and Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 728, that the PAC and SPC has been consulted and is supportive of the proposal, and that there has been adequate opportunity for all parents and staff to understand the proposal and discuss it, and that the school community is supportive of the proposal. | 3.4. | The board may also make a proposal for a local school calendar or amended school calendar, in which case it will provide a copy of the proposal to the principal, the employees of the school, through their union or other representatives, the parents, through the PAC and the SPC. |
|
4. | RESPONSIBILTIES4.1. | The school principal, working with the PAC, SPC and school staff at the school, will effectively communicate to all parties the process for considering the local school calendar and the responsibilities of all parties involved to make it successful. | 4.2. | Proposals should consider, where possible, any prospects for creating additional learning opportunities for students during the break times. | 4.3. | Any local calendar proposal should also set out processes that allow, where possible, students from families that do not wish to participate in the local calendar, to transfer to nearby schools. | 4.4. | Any local calendar proposal should also remind staff of the processes that exist for the transfer out to another school of staff who do not wish to participate in the local calendar. This section does not apply where the Board is proposing a local calendar for the entire school district.
|
|
| | Revised: | 2016-06-03 | | Approved: | 2008-05-08 |
|
