The Abbotsford board of education has approved the strategic plan for the 2024-'25 school year, and there has been a shift in the rankings of objectives.
Shirley Wilson became a school trustee in 2005, and is now the board chair. For the first time since her arrival, improving early learning was not voted as the number one priority. The number one priority for the 2024-'25 school year is literacy. Even though the strategic plan is different than many previous years, Wilson says that change is a good thing.
"It's a good strategic plan," Wilson said. "It has just had some shifts."
The four key pillars are student success, optimized resources, engaging opportunities and progressive workforce. The four key pillars don't change, but the objectives within each pillar as well as the top five priorities and new initiatives do. The seven trustees vote on where they rank them in importance.
Ranked from highest to lowest in student success the order is improving literacy, early learning, well-being, numeracy, career/life goals and graduation rates. Under optimized resources school capacity is number one, followed by instructional staffing, healthy financial position and capital equipment. Engaging opportunities sees parent and community engagement on top, followed by extra-curricular activities and use of technology. Two of the three goals under this pillar are in the overall top five. Progressive workforce sees employee engagement at the top, followed by recruitment and retention of staff, leadership capacity and employee health, safety and resiliency.
The top five prioritizes are literacy, parent and community engagement, extra-curricular activities, early learning and employee engagement. Prioritizing extra-curricular activities and parent/community engagement are making their first appearance in the top five.
With that, the four pillars change prioritization. Student success goes from a tie at number one in the 2023-'24 school year to number two, progressive workforce goes from a tie at number one to the third spot, optimizing resources drops from number two to number four, and engaging opportunities climbs from number three to the top spot.
Early learning was continuously at the top for many years. This was partly due to the correlation between a child's learning abilities by the end of Grade 3 and their likelihood of graduating. Regardless of the change, Wilson says everything they do within the Abbotsford school district leads to the overall goal of student success.
Other changes in the strategic plan include money allocated to certain initiatives. New initiatives included in the budget for the 2024-'25 school year are:
-$12,500 for literacy tools for students and educators
-$5,000 for Grade 3 to 6 Indigenous story telling curriculum
-$15,000 for the secondary student voice project
-$47,000 for equity projects
-$20,000 for roots of empathy training
-$12,000 for math enthusiasts group
Ongoing projects include $188,000 for extracurricular support and $30,000 for employee engagement.
The district also expects 218 more students to join the Abbotsford school system and 26 more teachers.
In alignment with the B.C. Ministry of Education and Child Care's Framework for Enhancing Student Learning, the district develops a yearly strategic plan to understand what objectives will be focused on. Every school year requires a year and a half of planning to solidify the pillars that support students, staff and families.
To read the approved strategic plan visit abbyschools.ca/plans-reports.