Aaron Buckham, Vice Principal and Lizanne Chicanot, Principal
Welcome back to school everybody! Although we still have two weeks of holidays left I imagine that students and families are beginning to turn their minds to the year ahead. I hope that you have all had a healthy and restful summer and are excited about the year to come. I am looking forward to welcoming back all of our returning students and to meeting and getting to know all our grade 9's and new students.
The seismic construction crews have made significant progress over the summer and are getting the school ready for September. You will notice large steel braces outside of the school as part of this project. Although work will continue through the school year it will be focussed in a few areas to minimize disruption to students and staff. The portables have been upgraded and will house a few classes each semester while the work continues.
The week before school starts Parkland staff will be hosting a teacher conference on Sound Assessment Practices. We are expecting 275 participants from the lower island districts, the University of Victoria and the Ministry of Education. We are looking forward to working with our guest presenter Tom Schimmer on how to improve our assessment practices so that we can optimize student learning. The staff at Parkland is proud to take leadership in this area.
This will be a great year. Parkland has an excellent academic program, thriving academies (Sailing, Hockey, Judo), an exciting Marine program, dynamic Arts and Music opportunities, a growing speciality in computer technology, a wide number of Trade and Career offerings and a burgeoning sports and athletics program. Parkland is definitely the place to be!
If you have any questions or your child needs support of any sort, please contact the office and we will be sure to help. And please make a point of marking Meet The Teacher night in your calendar (Thursday, Sept 17, 5:30-7:30). We want to stay connected with you and welcome your involvement in your son/daughter's education.
And lastly, to stay informed with what is happening at Parkland I suggest that you subscribe to Parkland forums. By doing so you will receive email notifications on Parkland events and news. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to our forums by going to the Parkland website and on the left hand side you will see a heading entitled "Forum Subscriptions". Click there and follow the prompts.
I hope to meet you all throughout the year--I like to get to know students and their families as much as possible.
Take care and here's to a great year to come!
Sincerely,
Lizanne Chicanot
Principal