Vancouver School Sports has just added their February 19th Pro-D clinic and tournament options on their website.  The site is now open for registrations.
Please visit the VSSAA website which is www.vancouverschoolsports.ca – the Feb 19th clinics can be found under the SPECIAL EVENTS TAB on the top of the home page.  
Spots are limited and filled on a first registered basis!

For questions regarding Vancouver Secondary Schools' Athletic Association please call 604-713-5207   or email hsohi@vsb.bc.ca or go to http://www.vancouverschoolsports.ca

STAFFING UPDATES
We have had many staffing updates in a relatively short amount of time. For this reason, we wanted to send you an update that is all-inclusive. We appreciate your patience and support as the district has worked hard (and continues to work hard) on the recruitment and placement of teachers, particularly in French Immersion.
Physical & Health Education Teacher (Tuesdays to Thursdays)
We wanted to let you know that we have received word that Mme. Edith Mercier, who was working as our physical education teacher three days per week, will now be working full time at Ecole Kerrisdale.  As a result, our Human Resources department has placed Mr. Pav Wypych at Tennyson; he is a skilled/specialized physical education teacher. He will be teaching the Physical and Health Education program in English to our students.  We offer a warm welcome to Mr Wypych, and wish Mme Edith all the best.
Division 9
As you all know, M. Brian has taken a leave since the last week of December 2017. His leave is now extended to February 23. We thank Mme Joanne for her service anchoring the class since mid-January. As of Monday, February 5 to 23, we are pleased to announce that Mme Arnold and M. Hilali will be delivering the educational program to our grade 3 students.

• Mme Arnold for Mondays and Fridays (She is our prep coverage teacher and has known these students since September)
• M. Hilali for Tuesdays to Thursdays (He is a very experienced French Immersion teacher in our system.)

Division 15
As many of you know, Mme Bolegoh began her maternity leave on the second week of January. Her job was posted prior to the Winter Vacation. Unfortunately, since then, there had been no qualified applicants for the posting. We had our teacher-librarian, Mme Lyse who had been in covering the class from time to time. Thank you to Mme Lyse for extending our students’ educational learning. As a result, the school administration decided to place Mme Regina Vosahlo, our Vice Principal into the grade 1 class for three days and have Mme Emma Lawson returning to the class two days a week. We thank them for stepping up to this challenge and providing continuity and integrity of the educational program for our grade 1 students.

• Mme Vosahlo for Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays (Vice Principal on Wednesdays and Thursdays)
• Mme Emma Lawson for Wednesdays and Thursdays (returning back to the class from Term 1)

Division 4
Great news! After months of looking for a French Immersion grade 6 classroom teacher and posting the job, M. Raphael Perdriau applied for the position and shortly after the interview, he accepted the grade 6 teaching assignment and started as of last week. Welcome M. Raphael to our school.
We would personally like to thank Mme Stephanie for stepping in as the Division 4 class teacher since early Fall. She had done a stellar job. Mme Stephanie will be returning to her full time resource teaching assignment at our school and is currently working on transition with Mme Vosahlo.
Resource Teacher
As Mme Vosahlo is now teaching our grade 1 division 15 class three days a week, she will not be able to deliver a resource program as planned. Luckily, Mme Stephanie has returned to her resource teaching assignment full time. Hence, she will be taking over the resource assignment until further notice. Currently, the two staff members are bridging the transition work and Mme Stephanie will be serving the student caseload soon. Please contact her at the school if you have further questions.
We are currently working to look at our resource/learning support schedules as our staff have changed, and we continue to work with the district in this regard, in terms of the recruitment of French-speaking resource/learning assistance teachers. Again, we very much appreciate your understanding and support as we work towards having a complete staffing scenario.
Douglas Roch                    
Principal - Directeur
Ecole Lord Tennyson School
1936 W 10th Ave, Vancouver BC, V6J 2B2
p: 604-713-5426  f: 604-713-5428

Dear PACs,
VSB is currently undergoing a French Immersion Program Review. As part of the review process, DPAC has been asked to 1) send up to 5 interested parents to be part of the Working Group (details in the attached pdf document; contact secretary@vancouverdpac.org if interested) and 2) to ensure the representative we include on the Working Group can represent our diverse membership.  
We have been asked to be inclusive of the array of perspectives within the VSB parent community. This means we want to hear from parents who are currently part of a French Immersion PAC and the diverse reasons they chose to be there. We also want to hear from members of non-French Immersion PACs, especially from those members whose children left or were denied entry to the FI program or have strong feelings about choice programs and/or their impact on regular stream.
There are a couple ways to share your input. We are arranging an input session on Saturday, February 10th most likely from 10am-noon for interested parents to discuss the attached meeting summary with the DPAC representatives on the Working Group. Realizing that this is not an ideal time for many, we would also love to receive written input … ideally before the 10th, otherwise before the next Working Group meeting on February 15th.
The following two questions are the primary action items from the last Working Group Session. More information is attached in the Draft Meeting Summary and the powerpoint slide files.
An update with the time and location of the Saturday, February 10th meeting should be sent on or by Tuesday, February 6th.
Please share this email with members of your PAC. Group and individual responses are welcome.
Cheers,
Amanda

1. Guiding Principles/ Measures of success for a successful French Immersion Program
   

The Working Group discussed guiding principles for our review of the French Immersion Program.  This focus of this discussion evolved into an exploration of measures of success for a successful French Immersion Program.  Participants acknowledged that the current issues facing the VSB French Immersion Program require that measures of success continue to be top of mind.
Once completed, these measures of success will serve as an ongoing reference point for the program review.  Keeping these measures of success top of mind will assist the Working Group in its deliberations and in communicating its work to the broader community, and will assist the VSB in making trade-offs during decision-making.
Potential measures of success include:

1. Student-centred focus
   
2. Family friendly
   
   • Mindful of driving, commutes, sibling right, etc.
     
3. Access
   
   • Geographic distribution of the program (location of schools/sites in relation to where families are; matching supply and demand). Access means a lot!
     
   • Recognizing diversity (economic, cultural, geographic, etc.)
     
4. Welcoming to families from across the district – not exclusive and good for students of all income levels and learning capacities
   
5. A K-12 program with options and choices at different points
   
   • Program provides support for any student to complete their schooling in French Immersion.  If students are leaving French Immersion, they are doing so to pursue other endeavours and not because they don’t have the support to complete it.
     
   • If a student chooses to leave the program this does not necessarily translate to a lack of success for the program. As a choice program, students can choose to leave and still be successful.  They may wish to try something new.
     
6. French Immersion as a Choice program
   
7. Qualified teachers with native-like fluency (maintaining a quality program)
   
8. Student success (fluency – equal orally and written) – joy, ease, willingness to speak French
   
   • DELF – external standardized test – this is more important to some than others
     
9. Focus on success for each student – we don’t want to dilute learning outcomes
   
10. Equal opportunity to apply
    
    • Access to the program is not sacrificed by ability to apply; Everyone gets a chance to apply
      
11. Importance of geographic distribution of choice programs/ seats relative to demand
    

Action: Working Group members asked to review this list.  Are these all measures of success?  Are they clear?  Any missing?
2.      Potential survey or focus group questionsDuring discussions, a number of questions were recorded for possible inclusion in the survey and focus groups planned for April, 2018.  The April survey and focus groups will elicit additional feedback from parents, teachers, partners and students regarding the VSB French Immersion Program.  Preliminary questions included:

• Why do some families choose French Immersion?
  
• Why do some families not choose French Immersion?
  
• Why do some qualified French Immersion teachers choose to teach in English in the VSB?
  

Action: Identify additional potential questions for the survey and focus groups.  What do we want to know from our wider population?


--
Amanda Hillis
Secretary
VancouverDPAC.org
604-762-4565

It was 6am on a dark and dreary morning ...

39 of our Grade 7  students left for Quebec on Thursday morning. They are participating in a week-long exchange where they are paired with a Quebec student and are hosted at the student's house. It is a wonderful cultural experience where our students get to see French as an alive language that is useful beyond the Tennyson walls. During the day, they participate in group activities with their Tennyson friends and the host school's students. Thank you to the 5 teachers/ support workers/ principals  that are chaperoning.

Friday update: rumour has it that the Gr 7s have already  been ice-fishing and have had their fill of food and dancing at a Cabane à Sucre (Sugar Shack)