Monday of this week saw Term 2 of the school year begin with report cards coming soon. I hope this newsletter finds you well, making good progress in your learning and finding a rhythm to your school year with us. Term 1 report cards will be ready November 25 on student dashboards and in the parent portal.
As a fulltime student with EBUS, I will email you each a credit check 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 have emailed all our fulltime grade 12s and have begun on the 11s and 10s, in order to ensure our students planning to graduate this year are all set with required courses and grad assessments. Watch for this important email in the coming weeks if you have not already received one.
REQUIRED GRAD 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 in person under the supervision of a teacher and are written in high schools across BC.
Students need to complete these only one time.
EBUS will help our fulltime students find a seat a local high school for the January and June sessions. You can get all the details at https://ebus.ca/welcome-package/grade-10-12-homeroomnews/graduation-assessments-provincial-exams/
For students looking to write in the January 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 by December 15.
For the required graduation numeracy and literacy assessments, all BC students will need government issue photo ID. A BCID card or a public school ID card will qualify. If you need a school ID card please send a current colour photo to ebusresources@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 this session cannot work, there is another in June.
REQUESTING NEW COURSES
For full time students wanting to add a new course, please email me your new request. Be sure to put the full student name and the specific course you are requesting, like English New Media 10 or Foundations Math 11. A new course will only be added if you are nearly finished a current course, we do not automatically add new courses at the end of January. 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. We plan that the latest courses will be added this school year is March 1 2023. Summer session registration will open the beginning of May each school year and I will have more info about that after Spring Break.
COURSE REMINDERS
This year it is essential students get started in all the courses on your dashboard given the volume of new students we are welcoming this year. Note that students who have not submitted any work within 4 weeks of having the course on your dashboard risk being withdrawn for inactivity. If you need help with something reach out to the teacher right away, or if you need to make a course change, let me know. Our goal is not to stress students out with this information; we want to support each one of you with your goals of learning and high school graduation. As a guideline, students working in 4 or more courses should plan for 25 hours each week for learning time, scheduled flexibly when it works for you. Your teachers are available during the traditional school day as indicated in their course, and we work hard to respond to student questions within 1-2 school days. Note if your teacher works part time, it may take longer to respond.
PHONE APPOINTMENTS
For students and families looking to book an appointment with me, please visit https://tinyurl.com/yyrbnz7p and select the appropriate amount of time you need when you are available for my call. My phone will show as “no caller ID”
WHAT ABOUT?
To ensure our full-time high school students have all the information about EBUS Academy needed to be successful, our website contains lots of information vital to student success. In this section of our bi-weekly newsletter, we will highlight some of the elements of EBUS that we get lots of questions about.
Sooo…what about when moodle is down?
This one is short and simple so I will do a twofer on this newsletter. If you cannot access your courses, check our social media feeds on Facebook and Twitter, along with the website. We post any interruptions to our courses there and anticipated timelines to course restoration. In the meantime, play with your pet, go for walk or do something away from technology while you have the chance.
For the second what about, sometimes students and families find there are struggles with their learning or course work, what about navigating this?
The first step is to contact your teacher and have a detailed conversation about the issue(s). If the challenge affects more than 1 or all your courses, you should have the discussion with each teacher. Your teacher is the one who knows what can be arranged in their course and how to best support you with completing the curriculum. I am also happy to discuss issues and explore solutions for students and families as well. Depending on the nature of the challenges it may be helpful for all of your teachers to meet together to discuss best ways to support you and your learning. If that is the case, I will likely contact you to fill out some forms to give us more information and then invite you and your parent/guardian to join in a virtual meeting about this. Ultimately, we want to see all our students engaging in learning and being successful in their educational journey at EBUS.
MENTAL HEALTH MINUTE
The power of laughter cannot be understated at any time. There are all kinds of positive benefits to laughing regularly, especially for your mental health. With the different social media platforms out there, I bet there are 10s if not 100s of millions of possible things on line to make to laugh. Some of my favourites are dad jokes and funny dog videos.
So I encourage you to find a funny meme, joke, or video and take the time to laugh regularly 😊
UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES
- Nov 25 Report cards available
- Nov 25 Pro D – teachers unavailable, courses open to students
- Dec 8 Grades 10-12 assembly 11AM
- Dec 15 deadline to apply for January grad assessments at www.ebusgradassessment.weebly.com
- Dec 19-January 2 Winter Break, teachers unavailable, courses open to students
- Tuesday January 3 2023 EBUS reopens
- Jan 23-27 required grad assessments register HERE before Dec 15
- Jan 27 end of Term 2 – all work handed in on or before will be marked for report cards
- 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 by emailing me HERE 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 1 on Nov 10, they should be about complete and started their Term 2 course(s). For Sept starts with a planned finish by the end of semester 1 on January 18, students should be about 60%+ complete. And for students working in a linear fashion to complete by the June deadlines, they should be about 30%+ complete at this time.
Keep well, the next newsletter will be Friday December 2.