On Tuesday, May 5 we are having a provincial election.  This election is very important.  Recently, our Alberta Government introduced a budget that has some major affects in education.  I encourage you to read our Superintendent’s recent blog Budget 2015 http://wordpress.holyspirit.ab.ca/?p=1756.

It is not my intention or role as a principal to support any political party during an election.  I simply ask everyone to become informed and, most importantly, to vote!

Get informed.  There is an Election Forum on Monday, April 27 – Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce is hosting an All Candidates forum (both Lethbridge East and West) at the Lethbridge Legion starting at 6 p.m.  Also, there is a leader’s debate tonight airing from 6:30-8 p.m. on Global TV and Shaw TV.

To Vote – Here is a link about where you vote and other election information http://www.electionsalberta.ab.ca/Public%20Website/index.htm?gclid=CKnVlPrOjMUCFVKGfgodwC8AjA

There are some major financial challenges coming in education.  As a very caring staff, we will continue to strive to achieve our mission, vision, and motto of

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Respectfully yours,

Greg Kostiuk

Schools in our division create a yearly Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP).  The CIP is the driving plan for the school.  We do not follow a deficit philosophy of something is wrong and needs to be fixed.  It is more, we are always learning and we want to improve.

Our first step in creating our CIP is to simply ask.  We need to ask our stakeholders for input.  We ask our staff, our parents, and our students.  For our staff and parents we use a web tool called ThoughtExchange (formerly ThoughtStream).  Our community is committed to Catholic Education and implementing our provincial Inspiring Education, therefore the questions we asked focused on these:

The ThoughtExchange tool is like a ‘dot democracy’ activity where participants assign ‘stars’ to submitted thoughts.  Here are the results from our ThoughtExchange:

Staff

Parents

Our next step will be to ask our students.  For this we will not be doing a ThoughtExchange, but simply having some discussions with them on how to improve our school.

After looking at some learning data and examining what our ThoughtExchanges tell us, our next step will be to build our goals.  Next, strategies and measures.  First we asked.

Greg Kostiuk

Our Lady of the Assumptions School is a very special place.  This is due to the terrific students, supportive parents and committed staff.  Thank you to everyone in our learning community.

• Thank you for a great basketball season, both the boys’ and girls’ teams did very well. I would like to thank the boys’ staff coaches, Mrs. Kraemer, Mrs. Baptista, and Mrs. Lutz.  Thank you to Ms. J. Groten and Ms. S. Groten for coaching the girls’.  A big thank you to all the students for playing on the teams.   Also, thank you to the many students for running the score clock.  Thank you to all the parents that helped to drive the players to the games.  Without all these great people we could not have had a terrific season.
• Thank you to all our Division I teachers for organizing our student assemblies and Ms. Groten and Mrs. Baptista for running our intramural program.
• Thank you to all our wonderful parent volunteers.  Your help is greatly appreciated.
• Thank you also to Mrs. Nemecek and Mrs. Greeno for our Run Club and Mrs. Mikuliak for our Snack Shack program. Also, Mrs. Baptista, Ms. Wirzba, and Ms. Fullerton-Lee for organizing the knitting club.
• Celebrating our faith is extremely important and valuable at our school. We appreciate the planning of our classes who sponsor the Lenten Liturgies.  I am looking forward to the grade 6 student’s performance of the Passion Play on Holy Thursday.  Thank you to Mrs. Kraemer for directing it
• Thank you to all the parents for your support of our Parent Fundraising Committee, the Grade 5 Southern Alberta Bible Camp Parent Fundraising committee, and our School Council. All of these groups work hard to make our school a great place.
• Thank you to Mrs. Graf, Mrs. Greeno and Mrs. Lank for organizing our Science Fair. Thank you also to our guest judges and to all the students who participated.  Fun stuff.
• Lastly, a thank you goes to you, the parents, who make this such a special place to be. Your attendance at all of the aforementioned events helps us to appreciate the importance of our work.

Together we are accomplishing our mission “to enrich each mind, body, and spirit in a Christ-centered environment” and reach our vision of “a safe and caring, Christ-centered community of hope and learning.’”

Respectfully,

Greg Kostiuk