INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Learning Services .................. 2

Technology ............................ 5

Payroll/HR ............................ 6

Around BTPS ........................ 7

COMMENTS ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER?

Please send your comments or

suggestions to jody.pollard@btps.ca

We’d love to hear from you!

BUFFALO TRAIL PUBLIC SCHOOLS

1041 10A Street

Wainwright, AB T9W 2R4

P: 780.842.6144

F: 780.842.3255

E: central_office@btps.ca

www.btps.ca

Twitter: BTPS#28

Superintendent’s Memo

For the Week of January 14th – 18th, 2019

FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT... In about three months from now, the 8th Annual Buffalo Trail Public School

Superintendent’s Public Speaking Event will take place at the BTPS Training

Center North in JR Robson School. We shared information on this event a few

weeks ago, but this is the time that we typically send out a reminder of the

competition categories and speech topics. You will note that due to a special

request, we have added a topic to the Junior High category. We are open to

hearing ideas about speech topics and want to try to select areas of interest

for our students. If you have any ideas for new speech topics, we would

welcome them! So here is the information:

Elementary Division - Open to students currently enrolled in Grade 4, 5 or 6

Topics: 1) Why my best friend is the best.

2) If I were Superintendent for just one day…….

Speech Length: 2-4 minutes - 1st Place $100.00 2nd Place $50.00

Jr. High Division - Open to students currently enrolled in Grade 7, 8 or 9

Topics: 1) Why Living in Rural Alberta is the Best!

2) Banning Plastic Straws and Plastic Bags….Do I Agree?

3) Do Violent Video Games Make People More Violent in Real Life?

Speech Length: 3-5 minutes - 1st Place $200.00 2nd Place $75.00

Sr. High Division - Open to students currently enrolled in Grade 10, 11 or 12

Topics: 1) The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement – Good or Bad for

Canada

2) My Phone is More than Just a Phone!

Speech Length: 5-7 minutes - 1st Place $300.00 2nd Place $100.00

The information on the rest of the event was sent out to all schools and we

look forward to the April 18th event! A big THANK YOU to all students and

staff who participate and make this event possible!

MISSION: Buffalo Trail Public Schools is committed to maximizing student learning,

in a safe and caring environment, supported by a highly effective team.

Question of the week, Page 5.

Win a great prize!

Email: jody.pollard@btps.ca

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2

LEARNING SERVICES

January is Literacy Month!

BTPS has great things going on for Literacy Month! Keep an eye on the Sup ’s Memo,

the BTPS website and our @BTPS28 twitter feed for fun literacy challenges, events and

ideas to share with your school! Make sure and share back all the cool things you’re doing

in your school too!

Image - Vancouver Public Library: https://www.vpl.ca/

Family Literacy Day is a national awareness initiative created by ABC Life Litera-

cy Canada and held annually on January 27 to raise awareness of the importance of

reading and engaging in other literacy-related activities as a family. The whole month

of January is a great time to make literacy a focus and to plan some fun literary cele-

brations for (around) January 27, 2019 (the 20th Anniversary of Family Literacy Day)!

Need some ideas/ inspiration?

Canadian award winning author and illustrator,

Barbara Reid, is this year’s honorary chair of

Family Literacy Day. She has helped create an

amazing Take 20 document with ideas to

share across your school and school communi-

ty! Take a look & try some of these great literacy

challenges out (& don’t forget to share your great

work using #btps28 #familyliteracyday2019

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LEARNING SERVICES

January is Literacy Month!

January is also a great time to

include some amazing First

Nations, Métis and Inuit titles

into your classroom. Here are

some of our favorite titles—all

available to borrow from our

central lending library.

Email Tzea at

Tzea.Sawchuk@btps.ca for a

complete list or to borrow a

book.

There are many great Indigenous reading lists on twitter

too—both for you and your students.

Here are some of our favorites:

#LibraryChallenge, encouraging libraries to add all

100 books to their collections

IBBY Canada—From Sea to Sea to Sea: the #Indigenous-

PictureBooks Collection

#ReadIndigneous

You can increase your own, professional literacy in Indigenous education by joining this learning group:

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4

LEARNING SERVICES

As the year progresses, we had a few requests to look again at using Google Forms for assessment either formative checkups or exit slips or for some

summative tasks as well. The best part is that Google Forms has self-grading quizzes baked into it now. If you couple that with Hapara Highlights, you can push a secure quiz to students without worrying about them browsing other sites while on their Chromebook.

Here’s a helpful tutorial. https://sites.google.com/btps.ca/ics/google-apps/

forms

If you’d like more help or would like to take advantage of other features like embedding video clips into quizzes too, feel free to contact Heather or Xay.

Check out upcoming local learning opportunities here.

TECHNOLOGY

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5

When is

Literacy month?

ANSWER

Stacy Joy @ Central

Office

EXTRAS

For all problems technology related please use the email addresses below. Big or small, a help

desk ticket needs to be started. Please do not “save” your issues for when a tech member is in

your school. We use the tickets to prioritize and plan for the best and most efficient solution. At

least one member of our technology department is on call to assist you, phone or email. Most

issues can be dealt with remotely. PLEASE start tickets as needed, the sooner a ticket is start-

ed the sooner we can look for solutions.

Remember your asset tag number on all tickets.

For Tech problems email techhelp@btps.ca Phone 780-806-2053 For PowerSchool or Power Teacher problems email sishelp@btps.ca Phone 780-806-2057

6

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PAYROLL/HUMAN RESOURCES

2019 Personal Tax Credit Returns Federal & Provincial

If you have any changes for the 2019 tax year, please download the

forms and return to the attention of payroll. If you have any

questions please contact either

hrspupportstaff@btps.ca or hrteachers@btps.ca

FEDERAL PROVINCIAL

Benefit Changes

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AROUND BTPS - WES

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Mrs. Chaulk's and Mrs. Munn's class' were challenged to be part of their community by their Classroom

Champion mentor Colleen Nesbitt during the month of December. The students discussed their options

and decided on helping the Food Bank and collecting money by doing a job in their house or community

in order to purchase some gifts to support Wainwright's Kinsmen's Wish campaign during December.

Today they brought their food bank items down, and went to a local business Jack's Place to shop and

purchase the items. Democracy at its best, these students quickly and decisively decided on 4 gifts within

their budgets to purchase and donate to the Kinsmen!

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AROUND BTPS - DELNORTE

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During the week of December 10-14, the Grade 10 and 11 students in the Leadership Fundamentals 1

HSS 1080 course participated in "A Flurry of Flour." They baked up a selection of Christmas cookies and

goodies, decorated them and bagged them up. On December 13 we took the baskets and headed out into

the village of Innisfree to deliver the goodies. We started with the senior's apartments, then to the Post

Office, and the last few baskets went to some residents who were feeling under the weather. The recipi-

ents were very grateful for the baking and the students learned a valuable lesson about giving back to the

community.

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AROUND BTPS - PROVOST PUBLIC

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Our CUPE members put on the Christmas dinner for all students and staff at PPS using the money that

CUPE generously gives.

10

AROUND BTPS - IRMA

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The last day before Christmas, we hosted a pancake breakfast that was sponsored by CUPE

11

AROUND BTPS - KES

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KES celebrated Christmas with some reading cheer. We played satellite bingo (made possible with the

help of Xay, our parent council president, and our community Legion branch and one of their members

doing our Bingo calling) in our classrooms to have the opportunity to win a chance at first choice books.

In the end, every child at KES received a book for Christmas with donations from Lloydminster Super-

store, Verses, a personal donation from Carolyn Bailey (the manager of Coles Lloydminster), and dona-

tions from our staff members.

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AROUND BTPS - WES

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On December 13, WES students and staff enjoyed a Christmas Meal using Funds donated by CUPE Local

1606. Everyone was filled with Christmas spirit...as well as ham!

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AROUND BTPS - JR ROBSON PANCAKE BREAKFAST

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AROUND BTPS - HUGHENDEN

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This fall Hughenden Public School learned that they had received a Nutrients for Life Grant which is

managed by Inside Education. We spent the money on a second hand grow tower that has a new home

in the Grade 4 classroom. Students have incorporated this into various lessons and have had many di-

verse and valuable learning experiences as a result. The week before Christmas break, a highlight for

these grade 4 youngsters was getting to bring some of the plants that they had grown to the school ani-

mals. Tort and the bearded dragons, Marco & Polo, greatly enjoyed being recipients of the products that

they had grown. Cilantro & spinach were eagerly offered to Tort and the lizards. Our school is apprecia-

tive of the additional technology that they now have. This has helped to foster authentic learning that

ultimately results in high engagement by students.

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AROUND BTPS - VES

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VES was very excited to be able to host

a Christmas dinner for our staff and

students on Friday Dec. 21st. Thanks

to a generous donations from CUPE

local 1606 and Mrs. J’s Catering, we

were able to sit with our classes and

enjoy a traditional Christmas meal. We

listened to Christmas Carrols, ate a de-

licious Christmas dinner, took part in

Christmas activities, and enjoyed the

time to connect as a school family. We

were excited to welcome Deputy Super-

intendent Michelle Webb, Trustee

Bruce Marriott and Wife Debbie, and

Trustee Jim King, to join us as they are

important members of our school fami-

ly.

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AROUND BTPS - HUGHENDEN

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Students at Hughenden Public School gave back to the community at Christmas with their tenth annual

Castles for a Cause Food Drive. Classes were arranged into cross-grade teams and competed to see who

could bring in the highest number of food bank donations. To encourage some friendly rivalry between

classes Leadership students counted donations daily during December and kept a tally on a giant graph

in the hallway. On the final day teams brought their donated food items to the gym and built “castles”

with it. Prizes were awarded for the team with the highest number of items and for the team with the

most creative castle structure. Much fun and school spirit was generated. The real winner was the food

bank who received a whopping donation.