Enhancing Community Engagement
Welcome to our dedicated page on Enhancing Community Engagement. In RETSD, we firmly believe that collaboration between our Board of Trustees, division staff, and the community are essential to nurturing a thriving educational environment.
On this page, we will share our commitment to fostering open communication and actively involving parents, staff, and students in informing the strategies we use in our decision-making processes. We're dedicated to ensuring that our entire community is well-informed and empowered to participate in shaping the future of education within our school division.
Below, you will find our first initiative since launching this page—a Community Education Forum. Stay tuned as we unveil further events, initiatives, and opportunities for engagement. Thank you for being a valued part of our educational community.
ENHANCED ENGAGEMENT SURVEY
In Spring 2023, an Enhanced Engagement Survey was emailed to all parents in River East Transcona School Division with the purpose of assisting the Board of Trustees in planning community education forums. The Board of Trustees was thrilled that 1,438 responses were received! We want to thank you for your input. Here is a synopsis of what we learned:
What are the two most important topics you would like to see us incorporate into a forum?
- Student Success/Life Skills: No matter the grade level, what does student success look like and what is needed to make sure they have what they need when they graduate? (1,151 responses)
- Mental Health & Well-Being: What supports are needed to help our students with their well-being? (893 responses)
- Safe Schools, Safe Streets: Keeping students safe in school is important. What are we doing to accomplish this? (677 responses)
- COVID-19 Student Learning Recovery: What are we doing to help our students readjust to classroom education since COVID? (155 responses)
When prompted with “Please indicate other topics that are important to you,” we received 621 responses. After compiling the information, the following trends emerged:
- Funding distribution
- Bullying
- Class sizes and combined classes
- Inclusion
- Refocusing on the essentials
- Character education
COMMUNITY EDUCATION FORUM
The Board of Trustees is now pleased to announce that River East Transcona School Division will be hosting a Community Education Forum on Saturday, November 18, 2023, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Education Resource Centre (ERC) in Bernie Wolfe School. The theme of the forum was selected based on the survey results—Creating Student Success: What Does This Look Like To You?
The forum will include:
- A brief presentation about how the division currently supports student success.
- A panel comprised of students, a school principal, a parent, and a community business member.
- Time for discussion rounds at small table groups. These discussions will be prompted by questions and the ideas that are generated will be recorded and later compiled into a final document.
Space is limited—the principals of each of our 42 schools will be inviting two parents to participate in the forum. Senior years schools will also be selecting students to join us that day. Please reach out to your school administration to let them know that you would be interested in attending this or future forums.
This day will be a great opportunity for trustees to hear from our community and, in turn, for participants to listen to what others have to say about creating student success. A report will be presented to the Board of Trustees, for their consideration and future planning. A synopsis of the discussions will be posted on our website after all the information has been compiled.
Thank you for your contributions to creating student success! Please revisit this page on a regular basis to learn more about our initiatives to enhance community engagement.
