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 26 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. Watch for this important email in the coming weeks if you have not already received one.
IMPORTANT – REQUIRED GRADUATION ASSESSMENTS
Students graduating under the 2018 graduation program will need to complete a possible total of 3 assessments to meet graduation requirements; Literacy 10, Numeracy and Literacy 12. These assessments must be written under the supervision of a 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.
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 completed
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 by December 8.
You can get all the details at https://ebus.ca/welcome-package/grade-10-12-homeroomnews/graduation-assessments-provincial-exams/
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 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 mid-March 2021. Summer session registration will open the beginning of May and I will have more info about that closer to the date.
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. 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
With the COVID related restrictions from the Province for all our safety, we encourage our students and families to stay connected in safe ways, such as meeting online. Connection with others is so important for our wellbeing, I challenge you to be creative in keeping safely connected in those relationships that energize and are meaningful to you. You might also look at engaging in new activities or hobbies that meet the safety recommendations to help manage. As always if you want to talk about this, please reach out 😊
UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES
- Friday Nov 26 Professional Development Day – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- Tuesday Dec 7 Grade 10-12 assembly 11AM by Teams (link to come)
- WINTER BREAK Dec 20 – Jan 3 – EBUS staff unavailable, courses open
- Tuesday Jan 11 10:30am assembly
- 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
- 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 1 on Nov 12, 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.
If there are ideas for the newsletter you would like to suggest please email me cmushumanski@sd91.bc.ca
Keep well, the next newsletter will be Friday December 3.