School District 48: Sea to Sky

Sea to Sky School District 48 is a small but richly diverse school district located about 45 minutes from Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. The district is home to 5,000 students and serves six Indigenous communities, the Squamish (Skwxwu7mesh), Statlium (St’at’y’emc), Lil’wat, Metis, Inuit, and Off-Reserve Nations. Indigenous students make up approximately 12 percent of the total school district enrollment in Squamish, Whistler, and Pemberton (Sea to Sky School District 48, n.d.).

In 2010, the district began reckoning with the multigenerational marginalization of Indigenous students in the community, due to harmful historical policies such as residential schools. The legacy of these policies was evident in the district’s graduation and enrollment rates, which showed that only 35 percent of Indigenous students in 2006 graduated high school within six years of beginning eighth grade, compared to 86 percent of non-Indigenous students (P. Lorette, personal communication, April 21, 2021). District leaders knew that to provide equitable education for all students, it was crucial to gain the Indigenous community’s insights about education to help shape the new education plan. Thus began the Sea to Sky School District’s educational codesign strategy, a collaborative education plan to improve enrollment and graduation rates among historically marginalized students through a partnership with the local Indigenous community.

The strategy began with an extended effort to engage the public in a comprehensive strategic plan process. This process brought together parents, teachers, trustees, students and members of the local Indigenous communities. Surveys were used to gather overall community input regarding a futuristic vision of student learning.  The new strategic plan “Pathways to Learning” was completed over a five-day process.

Beyond the strategic plan, the school district continued to work closely with the Indigenous community over multiple years to develop an “Indigenous Education Enhancement Agreement.” This process included community visits and convened round-tables with Indigenous Elders to lay the groundwork for deeper conversations about educational purpose and Indigenous student success. This relationship-building also included reaching out to families who typically did not engage with their child’s schools through family surveys around educational needs and values. Other initiatives included inviting families to open-house forums on district goal setting and forming community working groups to debate and codify educational purpose. (P. Lorette, personal communication, April 21, 2021).

Following the initial redesign, community members continue to have a role in district strategy development. The district conducts parent surveys every three years, fosters parent action groups, and provides regular updates on district thinking through community newsletters and videos. In fact, these ongoing co-creative efforts were enshrined in the Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement for 2014-19, which formally structured collaborative leadership between the local and Indigenous communities and the school district to enhance Indigenous education programming (Sea to Sky School District 48, 2014).

This ongoing strategy has reached over 5,000 students in early childhood, primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary school since 2010. In the 2019-20 school year, according to government monitoring statistics, the graduation rate of Indigenous students increased to 92 percent, while the graduation rate for non-Indigenous students also rose to 96 percent (Graduation Rates, 2019). According to district leaders, the culture of education has shifted alongside the improvements in graduation rates. Competencies such as critical thinking, collaborating, creating, and innovating are now a household language; schools are more transparent with parent organizations, and there has been a transition from traditional rote learning to student-focused classrooms (P. Lorette, personal communication, April 21, 2021).

Goal: Improve learning and development, Redefine purpose of school for students
Student age: Early Childhood, Primary, Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary
Tech level: High-tech
Lever: Providing Information, Building Relationships, Designing
Place: School System
Family role: Supporting, Creating
Parent participation in district education plan design: Digital surveys about the district education plan are distributed to parents and community members every five years. The survey is disseminated through the Thought Stream platform. Questions are posed through a backward design model, which asks community members to identify their beliefs about the purpose of education and then answer additional questions on topics ranging from curricular content to vacation days. The district uses survey results to directly shape the agenda for the community working group that leads the district education plan. Ongoing digital surveys play a role in a range of other district decisionmaking activities. For example, Sea to Sky School District used Thought Stream to conduct a three-phase survey on community member beliefs about the second Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement.

Goal: Improve learning and development, Redefine purpose of school for students
Student age: Early Childhood, Primary, Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary
Tech level: No Tech
Lever: Building Relationships, Designing
Place: School System
Family role: Supporting, Creating
Community working groups for education planning: The district regularly convenes working groups with diverse community members to build its educational plans. Its first community working group consisted of roughly 50 individuals, including principals, Indigenous Elders, and parents, who hosted various roundtables to identify the community’s core educational purpose beliefs. The protocol agreement between Sea to Sky School District and the Squamish Nation guides collaboration with Indigenous communities. The agreement mandates that teachers and First Nations collaborate to support the physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development of Indigenous youths.

Goal: Improve learning and development
Student age: Early Childhood, Primary, Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary
Tech level: High-tech
Organization type: Government
Goal: Improve learning and development
Place: School System
Lever: Providing Information, Providing Resources
Family role: Supporting
Regular communication on district activities and opportunities: The district frequently communicates with families via newsletters, meetings, and the district website to increase awareness of district events and opportunities for parent participation. For example, Sea to Sky School District sends out regular communication about Indigenous Education Enhancement activities occurring at school. These include activities such as a 24-hour drum event to promote Indigenous Cultural activities, creating posters of local Indigenous role models, and inviting parents to make welcome videos for Indigenous students. District leaders further spread awareness by hosting presentations at local schools on the purpose and process of their new education plan. Town halls and question-and-answer sessions allow parents to engage directly with their district leaders on everything from graduation logistics to survey usage.

Goal: Improve learning and development, Redefine purpose of school for students
Student age: Early Childhood, Primary, Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary
Tech level: No Tech
Lever: Designing, Building Relationships, Shifting Mindsets, Providing Information
Place: School System
Family role: Supporting, Creating
Collaboration with local Indigenous parent action committees: The district engages with local parent action committees to share information and insights about the education plan and to build trust among committees and the district. District leaders understand there might be resistance among parents to unconventional learning practices, such as doing away with letter grades or creating multiage classrooms. As a result, leaders also share education research that supports how these practices prioritize students’ socio-emotional needs. To begin development of a second Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement, for example, the parent-led Aboriginal Education Committee created research questions for the community and education partners. The committee facilitated community research projects to gather input on educational needs from the Indigenous parent population, Indigenous workers, and youths. With support from the Sea to Sky Teachers’ Association, Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 779, and Sea to Sky Principals and Vice Principals Association, the Aboriginal Education Committee then organized the common themes into a medicine wheel format, approved by the Indigenous community and still used by the district today. The committee also assigned a subgroup to write the enhancement agreement. By respecting the traditions and opinions of the Indigenous population, the district more effectively and collaboratively implemented innovative practices that improve the learning and development of all students.

Goal: Improve learning and development, Redefine purpose of school for students
Student age: Primary, Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary
Tech level: No Tech
Lever: Providing Information, Providing Resources
Place: School System
Family role: Supporting
Education on career opportunities for students: The district builds relationships with civil society members and local alumni to help parents understand employer demands for skills and postgraduation opportunities for students. During the rewriting of the district’s education plan, parents identified increased postgraduation employment rates as a key success metric. Partnerships with local businesses, universities, and public agencies give parents the knowledge they need to build informed opinions about the district’s educational goals. The district links families, working groups, and parent action committees with these resources throughout the year and invites partners to participate in a variety of community events.

Staff

Families

People

Space

Technology

Long-standing systemic inequities brought on by historically racist policies and attitudes are an incredibly high barrier to overcome. The district found challenges in simply speaking about these inequities; racism is not an easy topic to discuss. Progress could be made only through partnership with Indigenous Elders and community members to understand their mindsets and desires related to their children’s education. Partnerships were created through working groups, surveys, and sustained high-level communication via newsletters and informational videos. For example, the working groups showed that the Indigenous community valued 21st-century skills and competencies such as critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork over traditional knowledge-based assessments. Based on this feedback, the district made 21st-century skills a central goal of the new education plan. Design strategies then flowed from this goal, such as cultivating partnerships with business and civil society organizations to identify discrete 21st-century skill needs for the world of work. Leaders not only worked with community groups but also sought to learn from each community member as an individual. The district’s small size facilitated this direct and individualized outreach. District staff members remembered the names of individual parents, and families could have one-on-one meetings with the superintendent.

Parents questioned many of the aspects of the new education plan. Controversial features included having multigrade classrooms and not using letter grades on assessments. District leaders realized that they needed to deeply discuss why they were making the changes. They began using presentations and newsletters to give parents tangible research behind the methods in order to avoid resistance to these unfamiliar pedagogical approaches. They shared, for example, data on how multiage classrooms support individualized learning and lead to student achievement gains.

Familiar elements of Indigenous culture were also included within the structure of the education plan to increase buy-in among community members by showing respect for the community’s traditions. One such example was incorporating a traditional Indigenous medicine wheel structure to outline the education plan, with the approval of the community. Some Indigenous communities use a medicine wheel as a metaphor for various spiritual concepts. The wheel contains a center “stone” and four spokes of supporting elements, representing the cardinal directions. The Sea to Sky medicine wheel places the goal of “Learn” in the middle of the wheel, with the principles “Create and Innovate,” “Contribute,” “Collaborate,” and “Think Critically” representing the cardinal directions (Sea to Sky School District 48, 2019).

The community knows that the district’s education plan is iterative, continually evolving based on feedback. Sea to Sky School District regularly demonstrates that families have a voice in educational design through surveys, superintendent office hours, and policy refreshes. Parents’ perception of the district’s responsiveness in planning mitigates resistance, as families trust the district will take time to consider their input. In 2019, for example, the plan was refreshed after bringing together a representative group to assess areas that were not working. The working group determined that the district should better recognize diversity and begin designing with brain-based learning approaches, strategies, and curricula based on scientific research on how the brain works. The Sea to Sky School District hopes to address these existing issues through further inclusive planning processes and the shared desire of Indigenous individuals, education leaders, and all other community members to equip children with the skills and competencies they need to succeed.

Graduation rates hit record highs for Sea to Sky Indigenous students. (2019, November 2). CBC News.https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/graduation-rates-hit-record-highs-for-sea-to-sky-indigenous-students-1.5345406

Sea to Sky School District 48. (n.d.). District overview. https://www.sd48seatosky.org/apps/pages/districtoverview

Sea to Sky School District 48. (2014). Aboriginal education enhancement agreement: January 2014 to June 2019. https://22.files.edl.io/09b5/04/10/20/200643-688e0a45-2094-446f-9f97-c20363f162ec.pdf

Sea to Sky School District 48. (2019). School District No. 48 education plan: Pathways to learning. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dzt4Olerig7NMuK-i0R-BEFwcAtNmjdO/view?usp=sharing