Meetings

Public Board Meeting

Monday, June 7, 2021 – Meeting Agenda Package

Public Board Meeting

Monday, June 14, 2021 — Meeting Agenda Package

Highlights

2021-22 School Year Budget

The WCDSB’s school year budget for 2021-22 (a balanced budget totaling $322.4 million) was presented to the board of Trustees on Monday, June 7th, and approved on Monday, June 14th.

BUDGET REPORT

> The overall budget is as follows:

  • Total Operating: $301.2 M — ($6.9 M change from 2020-21)
  • Total Capital: $21.2 M — ($0.7 M change from 2020-21)
  • Total Operating & Capital: $322.4 M — ($7.6 M change from 2020-21)

> As always, budget decisions have been guided by the key priorities captured in the following plans:

> Once again, budget decisions have also been guided by new and emerging considerations related to re-opening schools within the current COVID-19 reality – chief among them, health, and safety considerations.

> Key funding areas of the operating budget include:

  • Learning Services — $208 M
  • Special Education – $39.2 M
  • School Operations & Maintenance — $26.6 M
  • Student Transportation — $7.6 M
  • Adult & Continuing Education — $9.4M
  • Board Administration — $10.4M

School Resource Officer Program Review

In January of 2021, the Waterloo Catholic District school board contracted Turner Consulting Group to review the School Resource Officer Program after the Waterloo Region Police Services halted the program in the region due to expressed community concerns. The WCDSB committed to undertaking a review of the SRO program to determine its efficacy in our secondary schools in relation to its stated goals. We sought to answer the following questions:

  1. How effectively the original mandate of the SRO program –related to relational proactive policing –is being realized in the WCDSB?
  2. How (if at all) is systemic racism experienced within the context of the SRO program?
  3. Whether there an overrepresentation of racialized groups that are being suspended/expelled where SRO involvement was also included?
  4. Whether racialized students see/experience police differently within the SRO program versus those they encounter in their community?
  5. How the police need to work in schools to ensure equity of outcomes for all students?

At the present time it is recommended the SRO program continue to be temporarily paused until a system level committee with representation from WRPS and WCDSB is established in the short term to address the following recommendations in an action plan:

  1. Refine the goals of the program. There needs to be a shared understanding of the SRO program with all stakeholders (staff and community members) to ensure knowledge mobilization. The implementation of the program depends on stakeholder understanding.
  2. On the go forward, utilize the information gleaned from the student census, to be initially administered in the fall, to further support the monitoring of the program and the goals it should establish. Further, we can better utilize suspension and Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) data in connection with our census data to determine any required foci for action.
  3. Consider additional resources to ensure the role of the SRO is dedicated to the definition and purpose of the SRO role only. If the goal is to build relationships, this takes time to ensure trust. The duality of the SRO role and role of police can cause confusion and mistrust when the roles of performed interchangeably, so a good examination of how the role should ideally perform within the school environment is needed and how to balance the two potential functions an SRO can fulfill.
  4. As we re-examine now and on an ongoing basis the SRO program, it is imperative to utilize student voice, especially from minority and racialized youth to design a program that works for them.
  5. To build trust and a culture of safety, reporting procedures/mechanisms should be established for students who believe they have been treated unfairly or inappropriately by someone in a position of authority.
  6. As a system, we need to continue our ongoing work on anti-bias training, equity training and responsive pedagogy for ALL staff.

The report is available beginning on page 7 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

Huron Brigadoon Boundary Review

On June 14, 2021, the Board of Trustees approved the following staff recommendations:

  • That the boundaries of Blessed Sacrament, John Sweeney, Our Lady of Grace, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, and the new Huron Brigadoon Catholic Elementary Schools (CES) be modified in accordance with Option 1, effective September 2022 or at such time that the new school opens.
  • That grade 7 students enrolled at Blessed Sacrament, John Sweeney, Our Lady of Grace, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha in the 2021/2022 school year, or the school year prior to the new Huron Brigadoon CES opening, be grand parented to finish grade 8 at their current school.
  • That grade 7 students grand parented at their current school be provided with transportation if they qualify in accordance with board procedure APO012 – Transportation.
  • That French Immersion be offered at the new Huron Brigadoon CES upon its opening in September 2022, or at such time that the new school opens, starting with grade 1 and growing a grade per year.

  • That French Immersion be offered at the new Huron-Brigadoon CES starting with one Grade 1 class per year (20 students), and that staff review the opportunity to expand access to French Immersion at such time as a boundary review is initiated to support the opening of a new school in Southwest Kitchener or if there are significant differences in enrolment trends projected by the New Huron-Brigadoon CES Boundary Review.
  • That students enrolled at Blessed Sacrament, John Sweeney, Our Lady of Grace, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha in the 2021/2022 school year, or the school year prior to the new Huron Brigadoon CES opening, who were directed to attend the new Huron Brigadoon CES as a result of the Huron Brigadoon Boundary Review, be considered for grandparenting at such time as future boundary reviews are conducted in Southwest Kitchener.
  • That a Transition Planning Committee be formed to support all students who will be moving to the new Huron Brigadoon CES as a result of the Huron Brigadoon Boundary Review.

The report is available beginning on page 36 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

French Immersion Review

On June 14, 2021, the Board of Trustees approved the following staff recommendations:

  • That the Waterloo Catholic District School Board continue to offer French Immersion in Dual Track (English and French Immersion) elementary schools, and prioritize that French Immersion be offered in a Grade 1-8 configuration or a school configuration consistent with English programming in the same facility.
  • That the Waterloo Catholic District School Board continue to provide a Grade 1 entry point for French Immersion, and that available Grade 1 spaces be determined annually, based on facility and staffing limitations, and that a lottery be held, by site, where interest in French Immersion exceeds available space and that siblings of existing French Immersion students receive priority access when applying to attend French Immersion.

F I Review

  • That consistent with the Board’s priority to keep siblings together, the Board review APA003 – Admission of Out of Boundary Students to reflect the admittance of siblings of French Immersion students in a capped school.
  • That the Waterloo Catholic District School Board continue the practice of not providing bus transportation to elementary French Immersion students who reside outside of a school’s English boundary.
  • That the Waterloo Catholic District School Board assess the impacts of offering transportation to French Immersion students living outside a secondary school’s English boundary, and that a decision on providing transportation to these students be made prior to November 2021.

The report is available beginning on page 42 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

Update on WCDSB COVID Education Delivery Plan

The provincial government and the Region of Waterloo have announced that all students aged 12 to 17 will have the opportunity for vaccination. This population will be prioritized above all others in the weeks of June 14th and June 21st, with increased capacity within the Region. Second shots will then be made available in August, with a goal of having all youth aged 12 to 17 fully vaccinated for the start of the school year. If the youth aged 12 to 17 have any family member who has not been vaccinated when the student is coming for vaccination, their family members may also be vaccinated. Capacity for vaccination will be handled not only by the Region’s mass vaccination clinics, but also by pop-up and hot spot clinics that will be set up in schools.

The ongoing targeted testing program was paused as of June 7th, as there is little demand for the asymptomatic testing with schools no longer offering in person learning.

We are now planning for the final days of this year, as well as intensively planning for the 2021-2022 school year.

As we look to the end of this school year, we know that we have thousands of devices – Chromebooks and internet providers – that we have distributed across the system. Similarly, there are textbooks and school materials to return and personal belongings to retrieve. This will be true at all our schools across the system. To facilitate the collection of the devices and textbooks, and retrieval of materials, we are targeting June 24th as the last day of synchronous learning and June 25th to begin retrieval, to allow for library technicians to receive, catalogue and retrieve outstanding devices. This will require asynchronous instruction for the final days of the school year.

As always, health and safety will continue to remain our primary concern and motivator. We are listening keenly to all updates provided regionally and provincially and will respond accordingly in the best interest of our staff and students.

We are hopeful about the possibilities for next year. While we don’t have full clarity as yet, the signs of recovery are increasingly looking positive.

The report is available beginning on page 44 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

Multi-year Strategic Plan Report

The Education Act requires school boards to develop multi-year plans that are 3 years or more in scope. The multiyear plan provides focus and direction to the board to achieve both the Ministry of Education goals but just as importantly, the vision of the board. The multi-year plan is aimed at achieving the Ministry of Education goals of increased student achievement and well-being, equity of achievement and opportunity for all students, as well as increased public confidence

In June of 2018, the Board accepted the final report card on the 2015-2018 Multi-Year Strategic Plan. Within that work was found stakeholder feedback regarding our previously identified Mission, Vision, Beliefs and three core Strategic Priorities. There was a high affirmation rate for each and thus it was identified at that time that those would remain constant and provide a foundational framework for a new strategic plan that was to be approved later in December of 2018. Informed by the work and MYSP survey of the spring of 2018, the June 2018 report card, and several conversations throughout of the fall of 2018, the Director and Senior staff worked to identify both new Strategic Directions and corresponding goals for each of the three pre-identified strategic priorities. There was a concerted effort to reduce the number of strategic directions and the number of goals. Nine strategic directions were reduced to 6 and 32 goals were reduced to 17.

The Multi-Year Strategic Plan for Waterloo Catholic sets out to prioritize our work in the areas of:

  • Nurturing Our Catholic Community
  • Student Engagement, Innovation and Achievement
  • Building Capacity to Lead, Learn and Live Authentically.

MYSP

On June 14, 2021, the Director of Education presented a detailed report on the achievements and challenges of the 2020-21 school year. While it is hard to quantify a firm result against our total number of goals, it is a fair statement to say that, despite some very significant setbacks and challenges that characterized the year, there was solid progress made in each of the six strategic directions. Of course, the entire year occurred under the cloud of some significant challenges related to the pandemic, and that impeded the ability of staff to be fully successful against a number of their articulated plans and goals.

The report is available beginning on page 47 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

Board Chair’s Update

Each month, the Chair of the Board reports on the activities of the Board of Trustees. Chair Melanie Van Alphen’s report for June 2021 is available on page 144 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

Student Trustees Update

Student Trustees Abby Barbosa and Kate Morrison presented their monthly update – covering activities in WCDSB’s secondary schools. It is available beginning on page 135 via this link: Meeting Agenda Package

Upcoming Board Meetings

To Be Announced

The Waterloo Catholic District School Board, representing more than 96,000 Catholic school supporters, operates 48 schools and four adult education facilities, serving more than 40,000 elementary, secondary, and continuing education students in Waterloo Region – continuing a 185-year tradition of quality, inclusive, faith-based education. Follow us on Twitter: @WCDSBNewswire – #WCDSBAwesome.

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