March 9th, 2017
On February 21, 2017, John Bryant, the Waterloo Region District School Board’s (WRDSB) director of education, and Scott McMillian, chair of the Board of Trustees, hosted the first ever Director’s Town Hall meeting at the Education Centre and welcomed more than 85 people to the event.
Parents, students, staff, caregivers, and community members had the opportunity to take a deeper look at our strategic plan and talk directly with the education leaders in our district.
“We wanted to provide a face-to-face opportunity for people to come hear what we have to say about how we are making changes to our system for the betterment of our staff and students. But more importantly, we wanted to hear from our community directly about the concerns, questions, or feedback they had for my team,” said Bryant. “The information we gathered from the Town Hall is extremely valuable and will be taken back for further discussion.”
During the hour-long carousel session with superintendents, attendees were able to talk one-on-one with our most senior leaders and trustees about our operational goals and the methods our system will use to measure progress and success.
Updates on the progress to meet our operational goals will be shared with trustees throughout the year at Board Meetings.
Director’s #WeAreWRDSB Town Hall – Transcript
The following is a transcript of remarks made at the Director’s #WeAreWRDSB Town Hall meeting and the slides used.
Speaker: Nick Manning
Thank you everybody for joining us tonight. We’re grateful that you are here as committed partners in our students’ learning journeys.
I’m Nick Manning, the district’s Chief Communication Officer, and I will be your MC for tonight’s event.
Before we begin, we would like to take a moment to acknowledge the territorial lands of the Haudenosaunee, the Neutrals and the Anishnabee people and thank them for allowing us to do this good work on their traditional lands. It is their spirit of cooperation and respect and their commitment to community that we ask you to join us in today.
Speaker: Nick Manning
Over the last year, a team of dedicated and passionate people from across our region worked together to set a new direction for our public-school district with a new strategic plan.
Our Director, John Bryant – who you will hear from in a moment – said earlier this year that we are committed to ensuring the achievement and well-being of all of our students – and that we will do this in an environment of transparency and accountability.
That’s what tonight is about.
You will hear from trustees and staff about the work of this board in delivering a first-class public education to Waterloo region.
But we really want to hear from you, too.
Speaker: Nick Manning
Tonight is not simply a download of information.
We want this to be a forum for dialogue. Where you can ask us questions and get answers.
This is also an opportunity for us to get info about the support we need to give to you, our community, to help us realize our goals.
To that end, you’ll notice you’ve been given a colour on your name tag. That represents the group you will join for a carousel activity at around 6 p.m.
Your groups will visit stations staffed by our senior leaders to talk about our operational focus areas. You’ll spend 15 minutes at each station interacting with our leaders and experts.
There will also be a station right where I am stood for you to break off and raise any questions you have that may not relate to our operational goals.
A small group of us will be available to talk and if we can’t address your issue tonight – we will get your contact information and follow up with you.
Speaker: Nick Manning
Before we get tonight formally underway, I just want to remind you that you can join the online conversation about anything you hear tonight by using our hashtag #WeAreWRDSB on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. My team will be keeping the community up to speed with the night’s activities and we invite you to participate too.
Speaker: Nick Manning
With that – let me hand over to Scott McMillan, the chair of our board of trustees to formally open this meeting.
Speaker: Scott McMillan
Thank you everyone for taking time out of your busy lives to be with us here tonight. The turn-out is a clear indication of the engagement our community has in education, and why it’s so important that we made one of our strategic priorities working with parents, caregivers and community members to be partners with us on our student’s learning journey.I am one of eleven trustees elected to serve on the Waterloo Region District School Board. Our job is to advocate on behalf of our constituents to make sure your voice is heard, and create
I am one of eleven trustees elected to serve on the Waterloo Region District School Board. Our job is to advocate on behalf of our constituents to make sure your voice is heard, and create policy that ensures a strong public education system. Our new Strategic plan does exactly that.
In creating our new strategic plan Trustees worked very closely with staff and all of our stakeholders to create a vision that will come alive in our Board, not just exist on a piece of paper. Trustees are very excited about the work you are going to hear about from staff tonight, and the vision we have set for our school board.
We are a Board that is working hard to improve the delivery of public education – and to make sure that we are accountable to the people that elected us. We are ready to work with you and your children, as they tackle their own learning journeys…. And as we begin to innovate tomorrow by educating today.
I hope you enjoy tonight’s presentation and activity. Please feel free to ask any of the trustees here tonight questions about the direction we are heading.
Thank you.
Speaker: Nick Manning
Thanks Scott. We’re grateful you are here tonight and I want to thank other trustees who are with us tonight. Our trustees will be with you in your groups shortly – so please do feel free to chat to them. They would welcome the opportunity to connect.
With that – please let me introduce John Bryant, our director of education.
Speaker: John Bryant
Thank you Nick and Scott. And thanks again to all of you for taking time to be here tonight. It’s so important that the work that we do as a public education system is informed by the needs of all of our community members.
And I am delighted to see students, parents, teachers, principals, community members and trustees come together to talk about our work.
This system is very fortunate to have around 8,000 energetic educators and dedicated staff who share a passion for public education and want the very best for their students.
Speaker: John Bryant
As Nick said earlier – we are committed to the achievement and well-being of our students, and to do that we need to successfully implement and monitor the work we do to make that happen.
What I want to share with you tonight is our road map we use as we implement and monitor our new strategic plan.
The plan has four key parts:
- Our purpose statement.
- Our strategic priorities.
- Our commitments.
- And finally, our operational goals, which is where the rubber really hits the road.
So. How did we get to where we are today?
Speaker: John Bryant
Looking back over 2016, the strategic plan really defines our collective effort. Our goal was to create a plan in which all members of our community could see themselves – a plan that positions our board for success.
We knew that in order for our plan to have traction we needed to hear from everyone.
Feedback from our staff, parents, community partners and members of our community played an important part in creating our new strategic plan.
Speaker: John Bryant
To that end, we’ve also made sure our students’ voices came through strongly both in the strategic plan and our recent annual report.
I am very grateful to Student Trustee Barnes and Student Trustee Jamal for their joint efforts to provide student leadership at the board table. I’m very proud that the pair of them were instrumental in the creation of our purpose statement that reflects strong student voice.
And, together they wrote a wonderful letter for our annual report which talks in some detail about the numerous ways in which we have worked to ensure student voice is heard, listened to, and actioned.
Ryan and Husayn – thank you for all of your efforts.
Speaker: John Bryant
We wanted our strategic plan to be something new, and different. We decided we would create a purpose statement instead of traditional mission and vision statements. This purpose statement would be underpinned by three strategic priorities, each with outcomes to help guide our work.
In November, we asked our community to help us define in a single statement what the Waterloo Region District School Board is all about.
More than 2,500 community members, students, parents and staff voted online and our Facebook and Twitter posts reached nearly half a million people. There were more than 12,000 comments, likes and shares of our #WeAreWRDSB campaign.
I’m pleased to share that our community recommended that we adopt this phrase as our new purpose statement:
Innovating tomorrow by educating today.
As educators and students in this diverse region I believe we stand together in defining innovation not simply in technology and apps, but in new ideas and collaborative ways of solving problems that face every one of us. These are the ideas at the heart of our strategic plan.
We are a public school district for all of Waterloo region: Canada’s innovation heartland. Our students, their parents and our staff are the people who, through quality education, will create the new ideas and new ways of solving problems that will drive Canada forward.
I’ll leave you with that thought for a moment and roll a video for you that gives you a quick look at the process we went through to identify our strategic priorities and commitments.
Speaker: John Bryant
As I hope you can see, many people from across our region contributed to the creation of our strategic plan.
And that point at the end – that we need to listen to the voices of many people, not just our staff – is exactly what brings us together tonight.
You’ve also seen a glimpse of our strategic priorities – but let me briefly outline what they are for you now.
Speaker: John Bryant
Firstly – we’re here to serve our students, each and every one.
We want our students to experience a sense of belonging in a caring learning environment that addresses their well-being.
And we want them to succeed in reaching their potential, graduating from our schools and programs following individual learning pathways that reflect their interests, develops their skills for the future and inspires global citizenship.
Speaker: John Bryant
For our students to succeed, we know we must partner with and support families and caregivers… and equip our teachers with the skills and resources to do the same as they work together to support every child in their learning journey.
We are all partners in making sure that students get the education they need.
We must also promote well-being for staff as they foster and model wellness for our students.
Speaker: John Bryant
Finally, we must embrace the unique innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of this region to build students’ confidence and success as they face the future.
Innovation in public education is not about technology.
It is about providing learning environments that include and celebrate diverse perspectives and ideas.
And supporting creative and collaborative problem-solving, encouraging our community to learn by exploring new and innovative projects, ideas and approaches.
Speaker: John Bryant
Underpinning our purpose and our priorities are a set of commitments that provide us with foundational beliefs to guide us as we strive to provide Waterloo region with a first-class public education system.
Interestingly, these are the same belief statements that guide the Region of Waterloo – its elected officials and staff as they work to have this region recognized as one of the world’s finest places to live.
Speaker: John Bryant
What are these commitments? Well….
We value respect, and an environment where people feel included, valued and treated with dignity.
We match our actions to our words, conducting ourselves in an open and transparent manner to inspire your trust.
We seek to understand and meet the needs of those we serve by embracing an attitude of care and support.
We innovate with a culture that welcomes new ideas.
Lastly, we collaborate to achieve common goals and resolve differences.
Speaker: John Bryant
Those values, our priorities and our purpose are what guide me every day and what drives 8,000 people employed in this school district to create a better tomorrow for everyone, by providing the best education we can to the innovation generation of Waterloo.
Speaker: John Bryant
I want to turn now to the substance of the strategic plan – the work that will help us realize the priorities and outcomes we have collectively set.
I will ask Superintendent Lila Read to take you through our operational goals momentarily.
Speaker: John Bryant
But first, my Senior Strategy Team and I met in January to monitor the implementation of our work, reflect on our progress and adjust our plans to ensure that we continue to be on the right track to achieve the three operational goals we have set.
I am very keen that everyone sees themselves reflected in the work of the strategic plan. As such we are working to identify the ways that all our lines of business contribute to the achievement of our priorities, outcomes and goals.
Let me be clear. This process is a shift for us as an organization.
This year represents the first time we have taken our strategic plan and really placed a significant emphasis on the successful implementation of our strategies. We are closely monitoring our progress and holding one another accountable for this work.
I must also stress this is a learning exercise for our organization and a growth opportunity for many of us. What we present today is an overview of the implementation status of our strategies. We have also identified the early data that we will use to further inform you of our progress, and when you can expect to see that data.
Let me ask Superintendent Read to give you a little more of the detail.
Speaker: Lila Read
Thank you John. And to all of you, thank you for being with us this evening. You should have been handed a copy of our implementation dashboard as you came in tonight. I’ll be referring to that and you’ll have an opportunity to understand a little more about what it means at each of the carousel stations in a moment.
Research from the National Implementation Research Network, and others, concludes that system leaders must monitor the implementation of school and classroom strategies from the initial planning stage through to full implementation to achieve their desired student outcomes. This research also shows that there are predictable stages of implementation, and in school districts it typically takes three-to-five years to introduce a strategy and bring it to the stage of full implementation.
So the journey that Director Bryant referenced will take time and a rigorous commitment to monitoring the implementation of our strategies. This is why we recommended a 3-year timeline to fully realize our operational goals.
Speaker: Lila Read
With this research in mind, we are introducing a simplified way to track and communicate our progress. This dashboard gives trustees and staff a tool to monitor our work and adjust our strategies as needed.
The traffic lights are intended to give a sense of the progress we are making on implementing specific strategies. Red means we are still in the planning phase and implementation is not yet underway.
Yellow indicates that a plan is in place and that we are in the initial phases of implementation.
Green means implementation is on track and a blue check will mean implementation of a given strategy is complete. It should be noted that the complexity of the work associated with each strategy means that we don’t expect to be at that level with any strategy this year.
As Director Bryant noted, you will also see that we have identified key performance indicators for each goal as well as early data sets that we will use to help us measure the impact of our implementation and we’ve provided dates to show when you can expect staff to provide this data.
So turning to our goals.
I’ll provide some commentary tonight on each goal and our overall assessment of the stage of implementation for each strategy. We are happy to address questions you may have during the carousel session.
Speaker: Lila Read
Our goal in mathematics is to improve the number of students reaching the provincial standard in EQAO by eight per cent each year over the next three years.
Our test results clearly show that we need to improve the delivery of Mathematics instruction to help more of our students deepen their understanding of mathematics and achieve the provincial standard.
There isn’t enough time in a presentation like this one to share with you the breadth or depth of the strategies we are implementing. You’ll hear more at the Math station, but at a high level, in Learning Services and Schools, our objectives cover four areas:
- clear expectations for a math program in all classrooms
- increasing educator math knowledge and expertise in mathematics
- increasing school leader knowledge of effective mathematics teaching methods
- and increasing families and caregivers’ engagement in their children’s mathematical learning.
Speaker: Lila Read
Considering all of our math strategies together, we consider the implementation of these strategies to be green – or on track.
As you may be aware, all school districts in Ontario have placed a greater emphasis on mathematics in the last few years. This school district is no exception, so many of the strategies we identified to support this goal are beginning to take root.
Key amongst these strategies is our effort to improve the classroom instructional practice of every teacher who teaches mathematics across our district. It’s not about our strong teachers getting better – it is about supporting all teachers in their practice. A more recently introduced strategy is to support administrators in their knowledge of mathematics instruction and explicitly supporting them as leaders of change and improvement in their schools. With this emphasis on every math teacher and every administrator we believe there is reason for optimism.
Much of the data we need to measure performance in this area is forthcoming and we will share that at a meeting of the Board of Trustees in June.
Speaker: Lila Read
For graduation rates. We aim to improve by five per cent over three years.
Many of you will have read Director Bryant’s comment article in the Waterloo Region Record in September.
He noted then that, despite our best efforts to date, our trending graduation rate data suggests that close to 20 per cent of today’s Grade 9 students are at risk of failing to graduate high school in 2020.
We all agree that this isn’t acceptable – so it stands to reason that we are also focusing on our graduation rates over the next three years.
Speaker: Lila Read
We are really in the early phases of our strategy implementation for this goal.
So we have a yellow light on our post.
I want to stress that this is not a caution about the overall goal itself. A yellow light means that we have a plan in place but that we are in the earliest phases of that three-to-five year period where strategies really take hold.
We are, in fact, quite confident about this goal area and have a comprehensive set of data points we can draw on to measure performance and we will share some that data in May.
One piece of anecdotal evidence I can offer is that for the first time, we are confident that every one of our secondary principals knows exactly what their graduation rate is and they are working with their teams to to put in place interventions to both identify and support those students who are at risk of not graduating. This may not sound like much – but I believe it shows you that collectively our leaders are all on the same road, driving with focus and purpose to the same destination.
Speaker: Lila Read
Our final goal – around student and staff well-being – is really beginning to take shape and some recent work from our Human Resources Services team has really shifted us out of first gear. You will hear about this work at two separate stations tonight – looking at student and staff well-being separately.
Speaker: Lila Read
Overall, we assess the implementation of our work for this goal to be yellow – or in early implementation phases. When we first presented our operational goals to trustees in October, this goal was the least mature of the three. I hope what you hear tonight and what our dashboard reflects is that we really have made significant progress identifying the data we need to measure well-being and the related strategies to bring about positive change both for staff and students.
Speaker: Lila Read
There’s so much I want to share – but I want to get you into your groups to talk more about these goals and the related strategies with our leadership team. Most importantly we want to hear from you. While it is the job of staff to set goals, your feedback and questions will help guide us as we work to achieve them – for all of our students, each and every one.
Speaker: John Bryant
Thank you again everyone for your participation. We’ve collected a lot of great input and questions to follow up on and I am grateful for that.
We know to make this strategic plan really come to life, we need to do this critical work transparently so this community can see the steps we take along the way.
We want our families and caregivers to have confidence in the quality of education their children receive when they walk through our doors every day.
This region has built a reputation for innovation, turnarounds and transformation. The WRDSB is adopting this spirit of innovation and an unfailing commitment to overcoming our challenges, together.
I passionately believe in our community, our educators and our students. We have the talent and skills to make sure that all of our students – each and every one – leave high school with the necessary skills to build a fulfilling future.
Success looks different for every student and it’s our job to ensure we help pave the pathway for every student’s success. I know I speak for our senior team when I share how very honoured we are to serve the students and families of Waterloo region and we want to thank you again for being with us tonight.
Speaker: Nick Manning
That just leaves me to remind you of the many ways you can continue to be involved in the dialogue around education in this system.
If we have ignited a passion in you tonight to continue this engagement, please consider – if you aren’t already – joining your school council or coming out to the Waterloo Region Association of Public School Councils meetings.
Much of what you have heard tonight we have shared with trustees at public meetings of the board that are normally held on a Monday night. You are very welcome to come and observe those meetings and participate in committees.
And please don’t forget that teachers, principals, superintendents and trustees are all here to serve you in a number of different ways. Please reach out to give us feedback at any time.
Speaker: Nick Manning
Of course you have other ways to be in touch with us. We are on social media and available to assist you on those social networks. You can also send questions our way to our public information email address – info@wrdsb.on.ca.
The information you have seen tonight is available online on the board’s website and in our annual report which you can find at report.wrdsb.ca.
Speaker: Nick Manning
And the next formal opportunity for you to be involved and inform us on our priorities kicks off right now. We’re launching our 2017 budget survey tonight.
Please share this with family and friends and ensure your input into how we allocate our $700million budget.
Look out online and on social media for links.
Categories: Board · Community · Learning · Schools Tags: Graduation Rates · Mathematics · Operational Goals · Strategic Plan · well-being
