Shuswap Middle School

School District No. 83 (North Okanagan-Shuswap) has engaged in discussions about the configuration of K-12 schools in the Salmon Arm area.

As part of this process, we are hosting information sessions open to parents and any interested members of the public.

You are welcome to attend one of the following sessions:

• March 13, 2024 – 6 to 8 pm
• March 14, 2024 – 5:30 to 7:30 pm
• April 23, 2024 – 6 to 8 pm

These sessions will be take place at the District Education Support Centre located at 341 Shuswap Street SW, Salmon Arm, BC.

To ensure we have sufficient space for everyone, we request that you RSVP at least three days before the session you plan to attend by scanning the QR code or clicking the link: https://forms.office.com/r/4GKUgjU0Vd.

Students in Elementary and Middle schools will be receiving their second Written Learning Update (formerly known as report cards) for the 2023-24 school year on Wednesday, March 6, 2024.

This second Learning Update provides information about your child’s engagement in learning, relationships with others, and social/emotional well-being. You will also find proficiency levels and descriptive feedback in all of the curricular areas using the following framework:

• student’s strengths
• areas of growth
• next steps at school or home

Also included in your child’s Learning Update is a self-reflection of the Core Competencies they focused on this term. The Core Competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need in order to engage in deep, lifelong learning. Specific goal(s) are also included in all Learning Updates, as goal setting is a curricular requirement and also an important life long skill.

Please review the Learning Update with your child and celebrate all of their successes to date this year! As always, please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher if you have any questions or concerns about your child’s learning journey.

We had our parent information session tonight (March 5) for Late French Immersion. Please follow the link below to sign up your child if you were unable to attend this evening. This is a first come first serve program so it is important to sign up you child if you are ready to commit to the program for the 2024/2025 school year.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=pP-hhz-WDkWNkBVd542b5UaIzASK1sxGnXtzA3WJ5T1UQTNXODNNRUxaU1E4MzBMN04wU0xOTjM0Sy4u

SD83 is collecting feedback from families and community on the proposed 2024-2025 district school year calendar.  Your input will be shared with the Board to help trustees decide if any edits to the calendar are necessary before it comes back for approval during the March Board meeting.

The draft calendar, which was co-created by a District Calendar Committee consisting of senior leadership, principals and vice-principals and North Okanagan Shuswap Teachers’ Association representatives, meets all Ministry requirements (for example for hours of instruction) as well as contractual obligations. An approved calendar must be submitted to the Ministry by March 31, 2024. 

The draft calendar proposes the school year will begin with a full non-instruction in-service day for all employees on September 3. This will be followed by a gradual start half-day for students on September 4 with the first full day of instruction on September 5. 

The in-service day will allow District staff to complete important work related to the Strategic Plan, explained Assistant Superintendent Michelle Guillou when she presented the recommended draft calendar to the Board of Education at its meeting on February 20, 2024, at the District Education Support Centre (DESC). She added that feedback from District staff last year was clear that the traditional half-day gradual start on the first day of school is needed to organize classes in the afternoon on the first day after meeting the students in the morning. 

Other dates to note on the draft include the last day of school before Winter Break being December 20, Spring Break is March 17-28, and the last day of school for students, which is a half day, is June 26. 

Please note the following:

• The number of professional development days (in red) have been decided through provincial negotiation, and are not part of the local calendar process. The proposed placement of these days, done in collaboration with the local teachers’ association (NOSTA) as per the language in our Collective Agreement, is part of the local calendar process.
• As of November 2015, the new BC School Calendar Regulation has been in effect. It is different from the earlier regulation in several ways, primarily that it sets the number of hours of instruction rather than the number of days of instruction. You may also have noticed the added non-instructional days and a subsequent reduction in instructional hours in recent years. These were negotiated provincially to help implement Ministry of Education New/Renewed Curriculum. 
• The Semester Transition Day (in light purple) on January 28th is for secondary schools only. Elementary and middle schools will be in session on that day.   
• Once a District Calendar has been approved by the Board of Education, each school will work with their local stakeholders to establish their bell schedules in a manner with the framework of the BC Calendar Regulation and the SD83 Teachers’ Collective Agreement.

VIEW PDF OF CALENDAR HERE

Please review the proposed SD83 District School Calendar pictured above, then provide comments in the survey form by clicking the link below.
FEEDBACK SURVEY LINK HERE

TINDER-STYLE APP FOR TEENS POSES SEXTORTION DANGER: CYBERTIP.CA RECOMMENDS PARENTS CONSIDER REMOVING WIZZ FROM DEVICES Parents may not have heard of it, but the Wizz™ app has millions of users and it is important to find out if your child is one of them. Cybertip.ca®, Canada’s tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children, is warning parents and caregivers about the dangers of Wizz and recommend removing the app from their children’s phones. What is Wizz? Wizz is a chat app owned by a Paris-based company that combines features similar to those seen on Tinder® (swiping through profiles) and Omegle®, an online service designed to pair strangers in video chats which was recently shutdown following a lawsuit over child sexual abuse and exploitation. What should parents be aware of? Sextortion is when someone is blackmailed with an intimate image to send nudes or money to a predator. Sextorters seek out victims on apps that allow strangers to connect, using accounts with stolen images that trick youth into thinking they are speaking to another teen. Predators may then move conversations onto a platform where images and videos can be shared. There, a sextorter tricks the youth into sending nudes. This can happen because the predator has created a false sense of security, by sending nudes first (which the victim believes is of the person they are talking to, but are often images of a random teen girl), or pretending to have mutual friends or interests. Why are we concerned about Wizz? Cybertip.ca has received 180+ reports concerning Wizz since 2021. Compared to 2022, we received 10 times as many reports about the app in 2023. Reports about Wizz increased faster than any other platform. Of these reports, 91% concerned sextortion, with males victimized in 93% of cases when gender was known. The majority of victims reported to Cybertip.ca were between 15–17 years old. Wizz permits users to share information about themselves on their profiles (e.g. location, interests). Reports to Cybertip.ca have shown sextorters leverage their victims’ personal information (e.g. the sextorter sets their location as the same province as their victim, or mentions they like the same sports or games the victim has on their profile). Wizz’s design also allows users to feature their other social media profiles, such as Snapchat, making it easy for users to add each other on different platforms. This feature may lead sextorters from Wizz to teens’ other social media accounts to victimize them. Use of age verification at registration – doesn’t that make it safer? Wizz’s “age verification” process appears to primarily be done by applying artificial intelligence to a submitted selfie. This process is known as “age estimation”, and it is far from perfect. Female Cybertip.ca analysts who are 23 and 25 years old went through the facial recognition process and were able to create accounts on Wizz as 16-year-old males. Also, in many cases those who offend against children and youth are themselves young in age and can access the app, meaning the age estimated-related safety claims by Wizz may provide a false sense of security. Next steps – Cybertip.ca recommends all parents and caregivers consider removing this app from their youth’s phone, and talk about the risks the use of Wizz may present to their teens. Visit Cybertip.ca for more information about sextortion, how to support your child if they have been victimized, and to report instances of online sexual exploitation. Youth can access support, resources, and help with next steps if they have been sexually victimized online at NeedHelpNow.ca.‌ The tips and other information provided herein is intended as general information only, not as advice. Readers should assess all information in light of their own circumstances, and any other relevant factors. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience; C3P cannot be responsible for the accuracy of information provided by third parties. All trademarks used are property of their respective owners. Information current as of Feb. 8, 2024.