Check out the following important events and reminders courtesy of Neighbourhood of Learning with respect to Rossland Schools.
There will be a Community Directed Youth Funds Workshop at RSS on Wednesday, May 30 from 1 to 5 p.m. Community Directed Youth Funds is a Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) grant totaling $100,000 per community over four years to support initiatives for youth age 12 to 19.
Rossland was a successful applicant in the first round of funding and must now determine how its funding will be utilized through a CBT facilitated workshop attended by youth and community stakeholders. If you or a youth you know is interested in participating in the workshop, please contact Jennifer Ellis at rosslandvss@gmail.com.
RSS is turning 60 this year and it is throwing a party. RSS grads of all ages are invited to come and help celebrate on Friday, June 1st at an RSS open house from noon to 2:30 pm. There will be cake and the opportunity to tour the halls of the school you once attended. The first grads exited the doors of RSS in 1952 and it has been a centre of Rossland life and culture ever since. Please come and show your support for this important Rossland institution.
On April 16, 2012, Linda Schulze of the Neighbourhood of Learning Committee provided a presentation on Rossland’s Best Solution to the Board of Education of School District No. 20.
The presentation addressed options for Rossland school configurations based on key facts associated with school sizes, enrollment increases, and costs per FTE. It also reviewed some of the costs of closing Rossland Secondary School (RSS), programming at RSS and the benefits of choice in high schools within the district and emphasized that K-7 simply will not fit at MacLean Elementary. Check out the Prezi provided to the School Board here.
Just a reminder that the District Parent Advisory Committee is starting a 360 postcard campaign to the Ministry of Education to provide more funding to our School District and underscore the fact that our district receives lower funding per student than many of the other districts in our region.
For only $360 more in funding per student, which would still amount to less than what neighbouring districts receive, School District No. 20 would not have had a budget shortfall this year.
Postcards will be sent home with students in the next few weeks. Sign the postcard and either mail it to the Ministry to advocate for more education funding in our district, or drop it in the drop box at the schools to be mailed to the Ministry as part of a larger package. An on-line version of the postcard is available at this link.
Thank you to all Rossland households that participated in the Rossland Schools Survey. Congratulations to Sheila Vockeroth, the winner of the survey draw prize. Many of the key survey findings have been provided in previous Rossland News columns and the most recent Rossland Schools Notebook.
The full results are now available online on the Visions for a Small School website here. In total, 518 households participated in the Rossland Schools Survey, including 468 Rossland households.
Overwhelmingly, Rossland households stated that maintaining K-12 education in Rossland was very important to them and that K-12 at RSS was their preferred configuration choice, presuming that maintaining both MacLean Elementary and Rossland Secondary School is not possible.