PEXSISEN Elementary

Our Action Plan will evolve as the staff, students and families have the opportunity for conversation and connection. For us, the process of opening our school is still in its infancy, and we have not yet had the opportunity to meet as a community to begin the dialogue that will be required to fully articulate our Action Plan.

We do however have a few first steps that we believe will build a foundation of belonging and connection.

1. Host a Meet and Greet event with all staff from Centre Mountain Lellum and PEXSISEN. We invited the architects who designed the school to share their vision, so staff understood the "why" of how the schools were built. We also had a meal and time for the staffs of both schools to connect. It was our first step in supporting a sense of belonging for our teams.
2. Reach out to staff for input about resources and supplies. This has been done throughout the last 5 months.  All decisions that have been made regarding resources, including but not limited to, chart stands/carpets/manipulatives/jerseys/PE equipment/IS resources/levelled readers/subject specific resources/Library Commons/flex furniture/colours, were done in collaboration with staff. In this way, we are hoping that all members of the team feel that they have had input and that their voices are both heard and represented in the school environment.
3. Build classes at the end of the first week of September. We will have 42 staff members and 350 students coming together for the first time on Sept. 6th, and we believe that we will need some time to get to know each other before creating robust, balanced and inclusive classrooms. We have connected with PISE to help us through this process. The focus will be on team and relationship building across the school.
4. Create family groupings of students and staff. The school has 4 separate wings with classrooms organized a communal flex space. Although we have staff coming from different schools across our district, we have a significant number of them coming from two schools. When organizing class placements for teachers, we ensured that these teachers were in different wings so that staff had a chance to develop new relationships and learn from new peers. We have also decided that each wing will house students from different grade levels. In this way, we will create "family groupings".
5. Planning Day, September 1st.  We will spend time-sharing our initial thoughts about the vision for our school. The process will be collaborative and interactive. It is interesting to note that the significant majority of our staff, particularly our teachers, have more than 12 years seniority, with some having more than 20 years in our district. We are curious to see what this depth of experience and skills brings to the opening of a new school and the creation of a school vision.
6. Jody Carrington Relit conference on August. 27th. We have registered and it will be open to all interested staff, as it can be accessed virtually. This was an initiative brought forward by a teacher and an EA, and has been positively supported by other staff members. One of our teachers will be hosting in their home. This will be a wonderful opportunity to connect and begin the process of belonging.
7. Booked Jesse Ruben to present to both Centre Mountain Lellum and PEXSISEN on October 19th. He will be showcasing information and music from the We Can initiative. We are hopeful that this will be another opportunity for building a sense of common purpose and connection, not only in each of our separate schools, but also as a community between our school
8. Develop a plan for creating a meaningful connection with our school name through connecting with and learning from the Songhees Nation.

• Write letter to Songhees Nation requesting meeting to commission art for school.
• Tour of school with representatives from Songhees Nation and artist collective.
• Meeting with artists to confirm the art pieces that will be commissioned.  Art will not only be a means of beautifying our school, but also be used as a teaching resource.
• Meeting with Elder Butch Dyck at Royal Roads to create a video of his teachings around the gift of our school names.  Video will also be used as teaching resource.
• Mount the Territorial Welcome at the front of our school.
• Continue to learn about local Indigenous history, place and culture.
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1. Develop a garden community within our school through our partnership with the Growing Young Farmers Society. 

2. Involve students and parent volunteers in order to provide opportunities for students to learn, try, and develop an appreciate for healthy foods (i.e., smoothie and salad bar days). 

3. Connect goals of Affordability Grant to a focus on supporting access to healthy foods for all children and their families.
4. Invite our Na’tsa’maht classroom program assistant (Derrick Titin) to share resources of Indigeneous knowledge and traditions around food (i.e., clam gardens, harvesting, indigenous plants). 

5.  Provide support to parent volunteers in order for them to share traditional foods and food experiences from their culture. Ideas could include a cultural fair, a family pot luck, in-class demonstrations.  We want to celebrate and support connections between our diverse school population.

6. Provide support to school librarian to purchase books which celebrate food from a variety of cultures and support learning in the garden. 

7. Participate in the Backpack Buddies program which provides families with food and snacks for the weekend. 

8. Offer a garden club and develop garden mentorship opportunities with other classes (in addition to the Growing Young Farmers program). 

   9. Provide opportunities for students to learn and practice compost education and vermicompost. 

9. Explore how we can expand outdoor learning opportunities on our school grounds and in community, especially in our school garden.
10. Continue to work with and learn from our Na’tsa’maht Department and Na’tsa’maht Cultural Support Worker, and Role Models to bring more learning connected to land and place outdoors through our SD 62 Role Model Program and other school and community opportunities.