Welcome back to an exciting school year in Chinook! I hope you were able to enjoy the fantastic weather over the summer. My wife, Val and our three kids: Kennedy (13), Brooklyn (10), and Connor (7) all had enough time to get on one another's nerves…so we were REALLY looking forward to school start up!  Seriously, Chinook is thrilled for the opportunity to work with your children on their learning journey throughout the course of the next 10 months.

Things to expect this year include:

Year 2 of Math Momentum

• While working with your children, teachers will be using First Steps in Math, a program that has many built in diagnostics intended to inform teachers on students' levels of comprehension in Math as well as the gaps in knowledge that may prevent future success…check with your school or SCC about activities you can do at home to support this learning opportunity
• 11% more students were meeting or exceeding expectation in Math after Year 1
• Our goal is 25% increase in 3 years…we are well on our way

Balanced Literacy

• Our instructional strategies and Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI) program will continue as in the past
• Our students demonstrated another 5.5% increase in Literacy last year
• We now have 84.5% students meeting or exceeding expectations in Chinook

New Report Cards

• Middle Years will have new report cards that were piloted last year
• We will  be piloting new Elementary and Hutterian Report Cards this year

Numerous Operational Items such as:

• Development of new school year calendar…increase to 950 instructional hours
• Board Elections

Recently our family has had the opportunity to travel to some countries and volunteer with those less fortunate. This experience has really helped grow our appreciation of all we have here in Canada. Furthermore, it has helped provide some perspective on how fortunate we are to have the education system we do here in Canada, especially Southwest Saskatchewan. I continue to work with a fantastic team of people and schools here in Chinook to ensure "this is a good place to go to school and go to work!"

Have a great school year everyone!

Liam Choo-Foo