Peace River North

Congratulations to Duncan Cran Elementary School for winning the Top School in the Classroom Energy Diet Challenge! Here is the release  below from http://energydiet.canadiangeographic.ca/home/winners

 

Duncan Cran Elementary School was the only one in the competition to have 100% participation from every student. For winning the Top School Prize, they receive $1,000 for a school party, $1,000 for school supplies and a $1,000 donation to a charity of their choice.

Christine Todd, Duncan Cran’s vice-principal and science teacher, instructs nine out of 11 classes at the school. She saw the CEDC as a perfect fit to get her students and teachers excited about saving energy.

The school held assemblies to keep students and teachers enthusiastic about the Challenge and tracked points on their CEDC posters. While the competition is now over, Todd says the school will continue with their energy-saving practices, including participating in Drew’s One Hour No Power.

“When you do activities like this and see how kids react, see them thinking,” she says, “ it just inspires you to keep being a better teacher and keep doing these things.”

Another example of SD60 students who are best for the world!

See the news article in energeticcity.ca

Congratulations to Meagan Haugen-Koechl and Kevala Van Volkenburg who were silver medal finalists and scholarship recipients at this year’s National Science Fair in Prince Edward Island. We’d also like to recognize Kyle Plamondon and Jacquie Gullevich who participated in the National Science Fair. This is a significant accomplishment and opportunity for our students!

Local, Regional and National Science Fairs would not be possible without the hard work of many committee members and volunteers from our community. We’d like to recognize our Science Fair committee for their hard work in providing this opportunity for thousands of our students:

Kevin Frankham
Linda Haugen
Darren Platzer
Jacqueline Armbruster
Rick Koechl
Angela Gatt
Ed Wesenberg
Sarah Huggins
Joe Umanetz
Jennifer Copeland
Tammy Gulevich
Barb Cook

Thank you to the many volunteer judges and local companies that released their staff to judge our local and regional fairs.

For a news story and picture please see the article on energeticcity.ca

What appears to be Canada’s largest scale model of the solar system and a partnership between the City of Fort St John and School District 60 needs one more sign sponsor has all the solar body signs sponsored!  We hope to have the signs built in the next months and installed this summer. Thank you to our sponsors as listed below.

Sun - Home Hardware
Mercury – Northern Metallic Group of Companies
Venus - North Peace Savings and Credit Union
Earth - Northern Environmental Action Team
Mars – RE/MAX Action Realty
Ceres and the Asteroid Belt - Booster Juice
Jupiter – Northern Valve Services
Saturn – PriceSmart Foods
Uranus - Urban Systems
Neptune - Spectra Energy
Pluto and the Kuiper Belt - McElhanney Geomatics

There will be an opportunity for one or more companies to sponsor project description signs in the future. For more information please see http://www.prn.bc.ca/projects/solar/?page_id=10

School District 60 Physiotherapist Lisa Boda hosted School District 60’s 7th annual BIKE DAY on April 30 & May 1, 2012

BIKE DAY was created by Lisa and maintenance foreman, Greg Large, who on a regular basis, work together to support children with special needs in SD 60. Lisa uses her skills and expertise as a physio to assess kids and liaises with Greg for his technical expertise to adapt equipment to meet their unique needs. Together, they began making adaptations to typical bikes to further work on the development of a child’s motor skills. “What better way to work on range of motion, strengthening, limb co-ordination, attention skills, and socialization than with a bike,” says Lisa. The demand for bikes quickly soared, and in 2007, Lisa approached the City requesting the donation of found bikes for the cause. A partnership with the City of Fort St. John quickly ensued. During this past year, bylaw officer Bonnie Isenberg played a key role in ensuring the district had the bikes required to make this year’s BIKE DAY a success. Lisa and Greg are already planning for next year’s event, and look forward to celebrating the students’ successes and the continued support of everyone involved, especially the City.

Our Early Learning website has some information on upcoming free family art activities. Please check their post for more information.

The 2012/2013 Adopted “Local” School Calendar as approved by the Board of School Trustees at the regularly scheduled public board meeting of April 16, 2012 is available in the link below. Please note that copies of the Rural School Calendars will be distributed at a later time.

Adopted Local 2012-13 calendar

 Adopted Local 2012-13 Calendar

Technology Services has one mobile device (an ASUS EEE Pad Transformer Android tablet) to lend to a staff member who

• Doesn’t have a laptop assigned to them as part of their job
• Doesn’t have a personal laptop
• Is interested in learning and connecting with other educations professionals through twitter
• Has access to high speed internet outside of work
• Would be willing to share their experiences with others

Interested staff can email jbell@prn.bc.ca from their work account with answers to the following (up to 140 characters for each)

1. What are your most important sources of Professional Development currently?
2. What are areas of your Professional Development you would you like to expand upon?

The 5th annual parent conference is fast approaching. Please see the latest post on the Early Learning blog for registration and more information at http://www.earlylearning.prn.bc.ca/?p=2172

The School Board office will be closed until Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 at 8am for the spring vacation.

Our Facilities department remains open through the break and can be reached at 250-785-1577.

Bert Bowes Middle SChool will be hosting a workshop by Daniel Vecchio called “Saving our Boys: Our Duty of care” on Wednesday, May 2nd at 7:00pm.

In this workshop/lecture, teachers and parents will learn how fundamentally important it is to engage and nurture the boys in our schools to find their emotional voice (emotional literacy.)

For more information please see the attached/embedded poster below

Saving Our Boys: Our duty of care Poster – PDF

Saving Our Boys