Our first newsletter of the new year! I hope you had a safe and restful holiday and are energized with for learning into 2022.
Often after a 2 week break like this, teachers come back to a higher than normal email and marking load; we appreciate your patience as we try and catch up as quickly as possible after the break.
As we are at the halfway point in the school year, I will be 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. I will be starting with the grade 12s and letting you know your status towards graduation, and then the grades 11s and 10s.
REQUESTING NEW COURSES
As you finish a current course or are 80+% complete, full time students can email me with new course requests. 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. The latest courses will be added this school year is March 1 2022 but recommend students have all courses added by mid-February.
The term 2 end date is January 28 but if a student is not finished a course by that date, not a problem at all, keep working! There are no late marks or penalties to continue, and once finished, students can request new courses to finish by June 15.
IMPORTANT – REQUIRED GRADUATION ASSESSMENTS
Students graduating under the 2018 graduation program will need to complete a total of 3 assessments to meet graduation requirements; Literacy 10, Numeracy and Literacy 12. These assessments must be written under the supervision of a certified teacher and are written in high schools across BC. EBUS will help our fulltime students find a seat a local high school for the January and June sessions. EBUS will help our fulltime students find a seat a local high school for the January and June sessions.
To clarify who needs to write the assessments this year:
Grade 10 students – literacy 10 and numeracy
Grade 11 students – literacy 10 and numeracy (if you did not write last year)
Grade 12 students – literacy 12 and any others not written
Students need to complete these one time only.
For students looking to write in the January 2022 session, EBUS can help you find a school close by for you to write in. You can register for that at www.ebusgradassessment.weebly.com Students who have put in a request will get an email by January 20 2022 about their specific arrangements including dates and locations. Requests sent in up to 9am January 13 will be worked on, but after that date it is very unlikely a seat in the January session will be found.
You can get all the details at https://ebus.ca/welcome-package/grade-10-12-homeroomnews/graduation-assessments-provincial-exams/
Recently UBC indicated that students applying there must score a 3 or better on the Literacy 12 assessment, with no requirements for the Literacy 10 or Numeracy. Currently other colleges and universities have not indicated the Literacy 12 result will be used as part of their admissions requirements, but we will inform students through future newsletters if this changes.
For the required graduation numeracy and literacy assessments, all BC students will need government issue photo ID. A drivers license, BCID card or a public school ID card will qualify. If you need a school ID card please send a current colour photo to Nikki at nvandolah@sd91.bc.ca well in advance of your assessment date.
We appreciate that COVID will be a big factor in both student comfort in writing during the set sessions and also schools welcoming our fulltime students into their cohorts. Our guidance at this time is to register for the session you plan to write in, and we will work with our students, partner schools and the Ministry of Education to deal with this grad requirement safely. It is not a requirement for grade 10 or 11 students who are concerned to write this year, and for grade 12 students, if the January session cannot work, there is another in June.
WHAT ABOUT?
Lots of new things to being a full time 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 by early February, 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 June 5, 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 requirements by the end of April. Notices to all grade 12 students will go out in February, so watch for futu. 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
- Tuesday Jan 11 10:30am school assembly Click here to join the Assembly
- Monday January 17 November grad assessment results released
- 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 14 January grad assessment results released
- 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
- 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 quarterly fashion, meaning by the end of term 2 on Jan 28 or by the end of semester 1 on January 18, students should be nearly complete. And for students working in a linear fashion to complete by the June 15 deadline, 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 January 21.