By Darren Lum

March 14 2017

Trillium Lakelands District School Board’s G7 – elected student representatives for each of the seven secondary schools – are working towards the completion of a report to act as a “student voice.”

The report will include school profiles of all seven high schools. Each of the G7’s representatives is reaching out to her or his student body to learn about what makes each school unique and whether students feel they have a voice.

This is part of the process of improving learning conditions for students at all the board’s schools. It will be submitted to the board’s superintendent of learning Bruce Barrett later this year.

TLDSB director of corporate communications Catherine Shedden said this report is a “project about listening to student voice.”

She didn’t specify if this report would be available for students to see or if there will be an expected timeline for change.

“There are no plans at this point to make any changes at schools. These are profiles that will help to inform administrators and staff at secondary schools” she wrote in an email.

She said part of the result of the discussion at G7 meetings around school profiles for this report has been a comparison between schools. For instance one school has a no hat policy another school offers late buses. This will all be part of the information provided to Barrett.

The report’s findings will help to inform administrators and staff at secondary schools.

“Our superintendent of learning Bruce Barrett will be taking all of the ‘voice’ gathered by the G7 students (an elected student representative from each of our secondary schools) to the administrators of each of the secondary schools for their review as part of their continuing school improvement discussions” she said.

At this time it’s unknown if this report will be in some form made public to students.

“I do not know at this point in time what the plan for the report will be other than providing the information to school and board administration for their review” Shedden said.

The data from the report will be included with all information related to board decisions.

“My understanding is that the information will be reviewed as part of all the information reviewed for school planning. It will be important for administrators to review the G7 information in context through the lens of their particular school community needs and plans” she said.

Shedden didn’t provide details related to a timeline for implementation.

“There are no plans at this point to make any changes at schools. These are profiles that will help to inform administrators and staff at secondary schools” she said.