This month is a short newsletter. We hope that everyone has a great Spring Break and comes back to school refreshed and ready to finish the year strong.

Parents/Guardians please call the office to update or add any new medical information to your child’s file.

Important Items This Week

• Gr. 10 Information Evening (gr. 9s) - Tuesday 6:00pm to 9:00pm @ South Peace Campus
• DCSS Career Fair - Thursday morning @ SPC. Gr. 9 classes will head over with their blocks E/D teachers from 9:20 - 10:30am.
• X5 andT3 Class lists posted / Request list in Office - Wednesday to Friday
• Locker Clean-out - Thursday & Friday by 2:50pm
• Long Lunch on Friday (11:57 - 12:57).

• Return back to School - Tuesday, April 3rd
• X5, T3 Courses start the first day back - Tuesday, Apr 3rd
• Trimester 2 Report Cards going home - Friday, April 6th
• Gr 10 Course Selection for Gr. 9's - April 6
• PAC Meeting - Monday, April 9th, 7:00pm @ South Peace
• NID - Monday, April 30th NO SCHOOL

Fields Trips in April

• Regionals’ Science Fair @ SD 60 FSJ – Tuesday, April 10th (Ms. Knee and CC students – TBA)
• GPRC Music Festival @ Grand Prairie – Tuesday, April 17th (Mr. Lee and Band students)
• Skills BC Provincials @ Vancouver – April 17th & 18th (Mr. Lofvendahl with SD 59 students)
• Quebec Trip – April 23rd to May 1st (Mr. Chenier, FI 8/9 parents and 20 French Immersion students)

SD # 59 Transportation department will not be allowing students on the bus to ride to another students residence without proper parental consent.

This can be done by contacting the Bus garage at 250 – 782 – 2106 prior to 1pm on the day of, or with a signed permission note from the parent detailing who will be riding the bus home with their student. (First & Last names)

We will not be allowing students on the bus who do not have this in place

You may already have noticed that the electronic call out system is working again. We apologize for any challenges not having the system in place may have created. The new system is now working and parents can expect to receive electronic communication when their student has been marked absent from a class.

How and when is a student marked absent? A student is marked absent by the classroom teacher when the student has missed approximately 25% of the instruction time (more than 20 minutes of the individual block). We have had students who show up for attendance at the beginning of the class and promptly leave for a majority of the class time. Showing up for attendance does not constitute attending the class. The expectations for attendance may be found within the DCSS - Central Campus Code of Conduct. We review the Code of Conduct expectations with students at the beginning of each school year. You can find our Code of Conduct on our webpage: dcss.sd59.bc.ca.

Students will be marked absent for Non-Bus days unless parents call in to excuse them.

The Ministry of Education is providing a parent presentation: Raising Digitally Responsible Youth, coordinated and delivered by Safer Schools Together.

Date: Monday, May 7th

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: DCSS-Central Campus (CRC)

The session is 90 minutes with 30 minutes of Q & A to follow.

Below are the learning outcomes:

Snapchat this? Instagram That? Roblox, Minecraft and Musicly.ly: Mom, I want to be a Youtube star! This parent presentation will focus on all things digital that your kids are talking about. Your child has now entered into their digital media lives, where device ownership doubles, video game use explodes, and they dive into the world of social media and hypertexting. Your child is rapidly developing their personal brand and identity with a digital device in hand and you need to be prepared. Family rules, parental controls and developing a family tech plan will be outlined as well as recommendations for monitoring your teen’s digital life.

As a parent, you must lead the charge as a digital role model and help your child develop a strong digital citizenship foundation while reminding them that their digital footprint is a reflection of their real and online selves. At this age, they will encounter situations that will challenge their independence, including cyberbullying (and more frequent – cyberexclusion), the dangers of anonymity, privacy, sharing intimate images, and inappropriate websites, and you need to be there to provide support and guidance during this critical period. Finally, to better equip you for your digital parenting strategy, a snapshot of the current trends and concerning apps will be provided. Every parent in attendance will also receive a version of the 2018 Digital Parenting Handbook to take home.

Please RSVP by email to mreadman@sd59.bc.ca to reserve your seat!

Guest Speaker

Earl Lambert is coming to Central Campus on Tuesday, April 10th afternoon. We will have grade assemblies from 1:00pm to 2:45pm. Check out his website, http://www.earllambert.com/ More details to follow.

2018-19 at Central Campus

We will have 2018-19 school year information to share in the next three Newsletters. Stay tuned.

Five Reasons To Get Students Reading a Series

(adapted from Lori Jamieson – HIP Books)

1. They read more because they want to find out what happens next.
2. It builds their confidence. Once they become familiar with a series, they are motivated to read the next book in the series.
3. Background knowledge is one of the most significant factors in comprehension. Reading books in a series provides the necessary background knowledge to enable understanding.
4. They develop empathy for the characters, which can lead to empathy toward others in the real world.
5. They build better comprehension and fluency. Because readers don’t have to spend as much effort understanding the characters or plot structure, they can devote more energy to higher-level comprehension.

Central Campus has many popular series in our collection. “The Ranger’s Apprentice”, “Throne of Glass”, “The Last Apprentice”, “Demon King”, “Among the Hidden” and many by Rick Riordan are all popular with students. Come in and check them out!!!

This year saw a great season of basketball, for both boys and girls. Our Grade 8 Boys were able to have a full season, with tournaments in Prince George, Fort St. John, and Grande Prairie. Our Grade 9 Girls had some success, winning a tournament in Fort St. John, and finishing near the top in a few others, including coming 2nd at Regionals and just missing a chance to go to Zones, losing a well-fought game against the Grade 10 team from NPSS.

The Grade 9 Boys also had some success, winning the Dr. Kearney tournament, finishing 2nd at the Bert Bowes tournament (losing to a Grade 10 team), and finishing 4th at the 16-team GPRC tournament. After ending the local season in a JV (Grade 10-11) tournament in Beaverlodge, they became the first Grade 9 team from DCSS to attend the Grade 9 Basketball Provincials, in Port Moody, just outside of Vancouver. Although they lost their first two games to bigger and more experienced teams, they won the last game, thanks in part to a strong game by point guard Jethro Cardines who had 32 points, 11 assists, and 6 steals. Jethro also earned an Tournament All-Star award at this 20-team tournament, and the boys are excited about working hard to go to more Provincial Tournaments in the future and do even better. It was a great season of basketball with almost 40 students from DCSS Central Campus participating on a team.