This is SJK

Dear SJK Community,

As we look forward to the Easter weekend, it has been a good week to reflect on the journey we have been on together over the last few weeks. For a bit of perspective, this morning I looked back in my calendar to March 9, only one month ago. That day was our annual Science and Math Fair, I had a meeting with a marketing company we are going to work with on next year’s campaign and I enjoyed a great conversation with retired educator, coach and SJK icon, Guy Zink. It was a wonderful day and I recall feeling very excited about the future. Four days later, we were making the decision to close the school campus and launch a remote learning program. So much changed so quickly. I’m sure you have your own version of this story.

Four weeks later, I am very proud of what our team has achieved. We conducted our first parent survey last week and spent this week analyzing the data and making enhancements to our program. You can read further information on the results of our survey in this article, but the results are overwhelmingly positive. My overarching feeling after reading all the comments and suggestions was one of appreciation. Our SJK parents understand and appreciate the magnitude of what we have accomplished and, like me, feel very grateful to our teachers for all the effort and hard work they have put into this program.

Looking a bit further down the road, we still have some work to do. We are finalizing our Remote Learning Assessment and Evaluation document today with a plan to share it with teachers and then families next week. Everyone has a lot of questions about how this will work and we will have answers shortly. The Ministry of Education has been most helpful in providing guidelines to us that we will incorporate into our own document. We have also revised our video conferencing practices and you can read more about these changes here. As always, we will follow best practice and put the needs of our students first.

Speaking of putting students at the heart of our decisions, we have heard from many of our new families whose children are joining us in September. They have been very impressed by our remote learning program featured on our website. Some have expressed disappointment that their children’s current private, independent and public schools are not offering a program like ours. In fact, some have simply shut their doors and these children will be left without instruction for the foreseeable future. These parents are concerned that their children will be left behind and we are considering how we might support them. Like their parents, we want them to start on the right foot in September.

Thankfully, our own families do not have the same concerns. This is because our entire team of students, teachers, staff and administrators have risen to the occasion. What I have come to learn over my first eight months at our school is that this is SJK—a community of both dreamers and doers, people who see a problem as an opportunity, who dig deep, work hard and can always be counted upon to go the extra mile for our students. It is at times like this that the bright SJK star shines even brighter.

I hope you and your family have a quiet and restful long weekend,



Ms. Cheryl Boughton
Head of School