Hi there. My name is Holly Szumowski and I am the principal of Sioux North High School.
Last year, our school saw an increase in our graduation rate. As we reflected on this, we noted that two changes would have helped us acheive this: Pathways and Planning and working closely with our education partners.
We began working more closely with our First Nation Education Partners here in the school. We meet with them regularly and share their student data with them. This has resulted in overall increased support for students, including lunchtime and evening tutorials, providing food, funding for our breakfast program, mental health support, and regular attendance check-ins. We also took the opportunity to share the best practices in support of all our northern students.
Post-COVID years, we saw students struggling for the first time with their future planning and pathways. Some did not see themselves graduating, and those that did did not have a plan. We formed an atypical PLC (Professional Learning Community) made up of experiential learning teachers, SHSM (Specialist High Skills Major) lead teachers and guidance staff. The inquiry premise was, “How do we help students have a better vision of their pathways and transitions out of high school?” We realized we needed to promote pathways and other opportunities outside of the school. To do this, we decided to
dedicate weekly time in homeroom classes to investigate my Blueprint and talk about specific pathway planning. Guidance went from class to class, talking about pathways and letting students know about Coop, Junior PLAR, Senior PLAR, and OYAP. Students also learned more about the different SHSM programs we have running at the school and the potential for apprenticeships.
What we noticed about our grad rates last year was that 75% of our graduates were FMNI students, which coincides closely with our student population demographic as compared to 62% the year before. We also noticed that approximately 25% of our overall graduates told us they were either entering the trades directly or via post-secondary programming to become specialized in their field, and that was a significant increase compared to any previous year.
