Helga Berger

A snapshot in time.  That's the goal of a series of school audits underway in Seine River School Division.  Assistant Superintendent Helga Berger says the word audit sounds like a scary term "but what we are doing is we want to give schools a snapshot in time in terms of how they are organized, the achievement levels of the students, the student profiles, success of the school, community involvement, all those kinds of things."

She notes the process starts now.  "We hope to have three schools audited with report and recommendations and good conversations, hopefully, for those schools by the end of November."

Berger says it's a big process.  "Visiting the school, talking to people in the school, interviewing the principal, some teachers, counsellor, some educational assistants, secretary and students.  And possibly talking to some focus groups for the parents as well.  We are sending out a parent survey so we have parent involvement and voice as well.  People can answer questions about how the school runs, what makes it unique and what the priorities are."

She will gather as much information as she can in about a three or four day visit to the school.  "Gathering lots of data, looking at that data over the past year and a half so we can really zero in on what is your school like today.  Hopefully at the end of that, mirror that back to the principal and staff in terms of here is what your school looks like.  Here is where you are really working hard.  Here's some areas you may not thought of that maybe haven't been attended to, the strengths and weaknesses.  In this way we are hoping people will see that's an area we need to go to next.  This would be ideal for planning, in the future, where the school needs to go next."