Blog Posts

When I was recently asked to share with some of my colleagues how our school district was handling the challenges related to the recent rainstorms and flooding, I could not help but reflect on the numerous calamities we have experienced as a community over the last decade. In addition to the pandemic and disastrous flooding of the last three weeks, our community has endured more than its fair share of tragedies. We have lost more students from a range of misfortune too difficult to recount here.

On the heels of our decision to open some of our schools last week, several high school students wrote a version of this letter below to me:

Dear Dr. Godden,

On behalf of several students in the Abby school district, we would like to request that you close the school district completely for the remainder of the week as well as thank you for your prompt decision making in this unfortunate situation. 

Last week I had the opportunity to meet for two days at the Jointly Convened Annual Meeting (JCAM) with Ministry staff, superintendents, Indigenous Education Department leaders and Indigenous representatives from around the province. If memory serves, this is the third annual meeting where leaders from around the province gather to re-commit to equitable outcomes for Indigenous students (we really need to come up with a better name than "JCAM" to fully capture the aspirations of this gathering).

As a way of keeping our focus on the teaching and learning in our schools, I have drawn a distinction between the “work”, our primary focus on providing for the educational needs of our students, and the “weather”, the conditions under which we do this work. In uncertain times if we are not careful, we sometimes confuse the two. While it is clearly important to ensure that we are following all the public health protocols, caution must be extended to ensure that this does not become the primary focus of our discourse and practice.

As we navigate the fourth wave of the pandemic, with an eye to post-pandemic teaching and learning, it has dawned on me that two of the lessons learned from the pandemic might be at odds with each other. With physical distancing being one of the best ways to keep ourselves and kids safe from COVID-19, we saw many classrooms migrate outdoors, at least for part of their instructional experience. This was sage advice given to us by public health, and many classroom teachers were all over it.

This will be a year to remember. I think all of us are happy to put 2020-21 in the rearview mirror. While we did a truly heroic job of navigating the pandemic last year, I think it’s fair to say that none of us wants to do it again. But let’s take a minute to reflect on our efforts. Not only did we live through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, but we were also able to keep our schools open, take care of each other and – most importantly – fulfill our mission to provide the best possible education to our students.

With the recent Ministry announcement that our schools will be returning to Stage 1 (“near normal”) operations for the coming year, I cannot help but reflect on the enormity of what we have accomplished this year in our province, and particularly here in Abbotsford. Put simply, our staff – all of them – have done a phenomenal job of keeping our schools open and functioning during a global pandemic, the likes of which none of us have ever experienced. This is worthy of celebration and profound gratitude.

In much the same way as last year, I have continued my meetings with students to get a deeper understanding of their experiences in our schools.  What has been different this year is that I am not able to meet with them in person, and my questions have largely been related to their experiences during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many things. With the stretch of nice weather we have been experiencing over the last few weeks, one of these lessons is staring us in the face. As we get vaccinated (YES!) and come down to what many of us hope to be the home stretch in handling this situation, we should remember the power of nature and outdoor learning to calm and restore our energies and resolve.

A member of our District's Pandemic Response Team recently congratulated us on our "one year anniversary" of the weekly meetings we have been hosting since COVID-19 took its place in our collective consciences. It took a while for it to sink in, but it dawned on me that we have been working at this for what seems like several years. This time last year, the World Health Organization declared that we were amidst a "global pandemic." We hosted a meeting with all school district leaders at the Abby Arts Centre to map out how we would tackle this emerging threat after Spring Break.