Hope this newsletter finds you well as we head to the final weeks of semester one that ends on January 28th. EBUS staff are busy with the increased marking load that has come in with the end of term 2, along with bringing in a number of new students. We appreciate your patience if it is taking longer than usual for assignments to be marked or questions to be answered. Note that term and semester end dates are guidelines for students to finish courses, if you do not finish by the January term end date, continue with your studies without penalty and finish the course(s) as soon as possible. The more firm deadline is June 15 as the end of the school year.
As we are at the halfway point in the school year, I am updating student credit checks detailing your progress in the graduation program showing the courses and required assessments completed, courses you are registered in and what remains to be complete to meet graduation requirements, including the 3 graduation assessments. I am working on the grade 12s and then the grades 11s and 10s to ensure our students intending to graduate have a clear picture of their educational plans.
IMPORTANT – JANUARY GRADUATION ASSESSMENTS
The Ministry of Education has cancelled the January 2022 Provincial Graduation Assessment session due to ongoing challenges presented by the pandemic. The Ministry has indicated that GRADE 12 students, who are on track to graduate before the next assessment session in April, will not be impacted by this cancellation.
Once we have additional information from the Ministry of Education we will reach out to those students who were registered in January. In the meantime, if you have questions please contact our Vice Principal – Barb Ziler at bziler@sd91.bc.ca
Assessment results are released by the ministry approximately 2 months after they are written and are accessible on the student transcript with the ministry of education. Details on accessing your ministry transcript are found in the homeroom on student dashboards.
REQUESTING NEW COURSES
As you finish a current course or are 80+% complete, full time students can email me with new course requests. All grade 10, 11 and 12 courses are now open. Be sure to put the full student name and the specific course you are requesting, like English New Media 10 or Foundations Math 11. We do not automatically add new courses at the end of January for the beginning of Term 3. As students complete or drop courses they finish or are not interested in taking, that frees up a seat for another, so it is in all students’ interests to not have inactive courses on your dashboard and to finish courses as soon as you can. To drop a course, use the “drop course” button on your dashboard, but be sure to let me know first so I can check the implications of that on your graduation status. We plan that the latest courses will be added this school year is March 1st 2022 but recommend students have all courses added by mid-February. Students in grade 12 planning to graduate in June 2022 should start their courses by February 1st.
WHAT ABOUT SCHOLARSHIPS?
Lots of new things to being a fulltime online student. And often you only realize the questions you have after you’ve been in the learning trenches for a bit to then see the things you don’t know.
Sooo…what about scholarships and grad etc at EBUS?
Every year EBUS has up to $40 000 in scholarships and bursaries available for our full-time students who meet graduation requirements by June and the requirements listed in the scholarship booklet. The booklet is released in the homeroom and our website shortly, and the deadline to apply is April 15. Scholarship winners are announced at our grad ceremonies. We strongly recommend all students who will graduate by June apply for any scholarships they are interested in as we often have scholarships not applied for each year.
With COVID considerations this year EBUS is planning to host grad ceremony Friday June 3, and have booked Van Deusen Gardens near Vancouver at this time. In non-COVID years we host a ceremony the last Saturday in May in Vanderhoof, our hometown as well. To participate, students need to be approximately 75% complete all grad required courses by the end of April. Notices to all grade 12 students will go out in February, so watch for a future email. If you have questions contact your academic advisor.
MENTAL HEALTH MINUTE
Over the years we have collected a number of free online resources to help with mental health. I encourage you to email me if you have a great free resource not listed here!
UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES
- Friday January 28 Term 2 ends
- Tuesday Feb 8 school assembly 10:30am
- Thursday Feb 10 report cards available
- Friday Feb 11 Professional Development Day – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- Monday Feb 21 Family Day – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- March 1 deadline to request courses for this school year
- March 18 Professional Development Day – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- SPRING BREAK March 21-April 1 EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- April 15 EBUS Scholarship application deadline
- April 15-18 Easter Break – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- April 22 Term 3 deadline for report cards
- April 29 Professional Development Day – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- Note that Term end dates are guidelines for students to finish courses, if you do not finish by the November or January term end date, continue with your studies without penalty and finish the course(s) as soon as possible. New courses are not automatically added at the Term change, students must request them as they finish current courses.
You can find the full year school calendar at
PARENT ACCESS
Parents, you can access your student’s progress and report cards on the EBUS parent portal: https://my.ebus.ca/parentportal/login.php We recommend parents log in with their student at least once a week to stay actively engaged in their learning and progress. Students, you can access your report cards from your dashboard, look for the A+ icon in the upper right-hand corner. Report cards are published 5 times a year; November, January, March, June and for summer session courses only, September.
As I get asked this often, if your student plans to finish their course(s) in a by the end of semester 1 on January 28, students should be 90% complete. And for students working in a linear fashion to complete by the June deadlines, they should be about 50% complete at this time.
PHONE APPOINTMENTS
As COVID related changes were announced by the Province, I transitioned to working from home. To book a phone appt with me, use https://tinyurl.com/yyrbnz7p and select the appropriate amount of time you need when you are available for my call. My calls will show as “no caller ID” but I will call at the time you request.
Keep well, the next newsletter will be Friday February 4.