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Catholic School Board briefs
HPV vaccine to be given this week
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, September 25, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Grade 5 students attending either Weledeh Catholic School or St. Joseph School will be the first Yellowknife Catholic Schools students to receive their vaccines against the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) this week.
Superintendent Claudia Parker explained to trustees that parents would have to sign a form for their child to opt in for the vaccine. Elsewhere in Canada, parents need to sign to opt their child out of the vaccine, but Parker said the Department of Public Health gave YCS permission to offer this alternative.
"There will be a form that is detailed for individual children," said Parker. "There will be a list of vaccines and parents will have to sign off on which ones they want their children to receive."
The board of trustees voted unanimously on May 15 to approve the HPV vaccines in YCS after a similar motion was axed in a 5-2 vote four years earlier. At that time, some trustees said insufficient information on the potential side effects of the vaccine was the reason they voted against the motion. Other board members took issue with the vaccine, saying it condoned premarital sex.
The vaccines will be given by public health officials this week and administered once parents have signed the consent forms. The vaccines are available only to girls because the vaccine for boys is not yet covered by medicare, something public health is working to change.
School year 'off to a great start'
"It's as if the kids haven't been away for the past two months," superintendent Claudia Parker said, in the first few minutes of her report at the Yellowknife Catholic Schools board meeting on Sept. 18.
Parker said the start of the 2013/2014 school year went by without a hitch and that the schools were doing well.
She reported kindergarten numbers are up from last year based on the number of students in the classroom, not official reports from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. As well, Parker said the late French immersion program at Weledeh School, which begins in Grade 6 and needed at least 10 students, has 11 after another student enrolled in the first week of school.
"The students and their parents are already impressed by the activities," Parker said. "I've had parents tell me that, so far, the transition into immersion is going smoothly."
Strategic plan underway
Yellowknife Catholic Schools trustees, administrative staff, teachers and co-ordinators will gather on Oct. 19 to discuss the board's new three-pronged strategic plan.
The discussion will be led by business strategist Sandy Osbourne and will cover how the board will implement its strategy.
"We continue to have our main areas of focus through the strategic plan in spirituality, increased student achievement and aboriginal student achievement," Parker stated in the board's 2012-2013 annual report released last week.
Each strategy has a "key result" including participation in faith-based activities by 80 per cent of students and staff, improvement in literacy over time for all students and an increase in the number of aboriginal students who successfully complete each school year.
The priorities were determined in partnership with parents who completed a survey before the end of the 2012/2013 school year.
"We will be revisiting our goals and developing new action plans. In the fall, parent representatives will be invited to join us in this process."
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