The Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) has announced the winners of this year’s Trustee Innovation Awards, and a Prescott public school is on the list.
Principal Heidi MacDonald, School Council Chair Robyn Holmes, and teachers Jennifer Ng and Shannon Scott received the award for a program that saw them working with parents to help improve Maynard Public School students’ literacy skills.
“Part of this initiative included an engaging and collaborative educational development session for parents and guardians to learn about the Science of Reading,” the announcement reads, “and showing them exactly how they can support their children at home, creating at-home support kits with the tools and references that parents would need to support their children with literacy.”
According to April Scott-Clarke, the UCDSB’s Manager of Communications, the program has been popular with parents, kids, and staff at other schools.
“This initiative has proven to be both sustainable and produce results for the learners,” she says. “It also emphasized the importance of reading for pleasure with children. Other schools in the district have also reached out to the team wanting to create their own sessions and kits for families.”
The UCDSB’s Trustee Innovation Awards are given once a year to recognize unique teaching practices that could be incorporated into the board’s curriculum going forward.
Other winners this year include a student at Chimo Elementary School in Smiths Falls, a group of educators at Russell High School, and a French teacher at Sweet’s Corners Elementary School in Lyndhurst.
MyPrescottNow.com has reached out to the winners at Maynard for comment.