(rdnewsNOW file photo)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

RED DEER PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Education Plan to focus on mental health and writing, fees increased for international students

Apr 13, 2019 | 12:46 PM

Red Deer Public Schools is putting a bigger focus on writing and mental health in the latest annual update to its three year education plan.

School board trustees approved the changes last week and will give the plan its final go-ahead this June. Board Chair Bev Manning says the changes come following plenty of consultation with parents.

“The shift to is just an acknowledgement that along with reading comes writing,” she says, noting this doesn’t mean there will be less time spent on reading and numeracy. “We talked to our community and one of the things they had to say is that kids need to work on their writing skills.”

Manning says there haven’t been any red flags in terms of test scores that would suggest overall writing skills are inadequate. In addition to writing, the division will also incorporate more financial literacy into its numeracy curriculum.

As for mental health, Manning says they’ve had a wellness coordinator working around the division for the last year, and that position has been making a difference by taking a holistic approach.

“We hear it loud and clear that students are under a lot of stress, they have a lot of issues that they come to school with, and rightfully we need to address some of those,” says Manning.

“We’ve done some professional development that includes every teacher and staff member doing training which makes sure that everybody is getting the same language and same kinds of lessons at the appropriate age level. This is so we’re talking about the same things, we’re using the same common words and the same descriptors so that we can work with our mental health.”

The school district will also put more emphasis on communicating six core character traits identified through its 2018-19 engagement process. Values include: respectful, healthy, responsible, resilient, curious, and collaborative.

The consultations included feedback from 1,471 users online, plus a series of town hall meetings and focus groups.

— International Students

The board has also approved an increase to the fee for students wishing to take part in the International Student Program.

Tuition is already over $11,000 for a full year, but the division is upping that by $400 largely due to soaring transportation costs.

“It’s great to have those students with us so that our students can learn from them and experience other things about their culture and make those relationships. That’s the most important thing,” says Manning, who stresses the importance of students learning about globalization.

“That means we are increasingly recognizing that we are part of the world. Travel nowadays is much easier, students grow up and really the world is at their fingertips, and their careers can take them to any area of the world. That’s key in trying to prepare students.”

Manning says though the benefits are vast, travel costs to airports, the costs of bus passes, student activities and recruitment missions have all gone up.

Red Deer Public Schools has a record 127 international students this school year.

Students typically come from Brazil, Mexico, Japan and Germany, though more have come recently from Belgium, Italy, Spain and Vietnam. This year marked the first time the division had students from India, Cameroon and Nigeria.