Good afternoon Maple Grove,
Just a short blog as we wrap up this week. Basketball is winding down and we’re getting ready of Ultimate to start up shortly. Thursday Maple Grove practised our Earthquake Drill. While the weather was not great, and we were short staff due to illness, we managed to do our radio and coms checks as well as practise some student release. We are hopeful that if the weather ever improves, we can actually spend more time working through a scenario where we activate all our command teams. Thank You to the parents who were able to help with student release. More to come on this.

Welcome Back Mr. Land

Mr. Evans is continuing to recover, but it’s been a slow process. Mr. Land is back with us until further notice and he will be joined by Natalie Morissette.

School Organization

Last week the VSB provided all schools in Vancouver with their staffing entitlements based on enrolment projections for September ’22. Maple Grove has 94 students, who should be able to attend Maple Grove, being farmed out to other surrounding schools, because there is not enough space at Maple Grove. This process of sending catchment students to nearby schools is causing a domino effect for those schools as our students are taking up necessary spots in other schools. And so those schools farm out their students to other nearby schools and the cycle repeats causing consternation at multiple schools throughout this area of the district. The district SMT and DMT have decided to tried to find solutions to manage this problematic trend. For the foreseeable future, they are planning to open two classroom portables at Maple Grove (the portables sitting un-used for the past few years on the tennis courts).

The VSB has required Maple Grove to add a Kindergarten class to our School Organization and an additional class at a to be determined section of our school organization. This means, Maple Grove traditional side of the school will be increasing from 14 to 16 divisions. Our tentative projections have managed to reduce our waitlist from 94 to about 35 students. We are being told to anticipate this trend to continue for the next few years- partly due to development in the neighbourhood and also the new school factor plays a part in this process.

We are presently engaged in conversations with the staff regarding School Organization and what things might look like for next year. Undoubtedly, we will have two senior classes in the portables- and we will be adding to it for the foreseeable future or until our enrolment settles.

There will be more information in coming weekly posts that will share specifics about what the school organization and enrolment look like. Thank you to everyone’s help in making sure we have proper registrations at the school and that all our families are accounted for and included in our projections.

Grad Parent Committee

Parent Volunteers Needed (specifically gr 6+7 but any gr welcome)
Parents we find ourselves in the position being able to offer more traditional school experiences as Covid restriction ease provincially and nationally. Each year end we celebrate our gr 7 grads. Past practise had been that gr 6 parents volunteer at the event, and that way gr 7 parents can partake and enjoy the event. Then, the following year, the new set of gr 6 parents volunteer, so the new set of gr 7 parents can have their turn enjoying the event. It’s a kinda, Pay It Forward operation.

This year’s Grad Parent Committee still have openings and need your help (decorating, supervising food, bouncers for the dance afterwards, etc). It’s really fun and a great way to get to know more parents and kids. We need gr 7 parents will be needed for the decoration and set up, and gr 6 (or other gr) parents needed for serving food and supervising the event.

If you’re interested (even just a little) reach out to Kristie Ruff at kristieruf@gmail.com