February 2020 – Trustee
Greetings for School Newsletters
Message from Our
Trustee
As we enter another
month of winter, this is a good time to be thinking about our health,
well-being and the importance of self-care. We know that, like all of us, our
students can focus better when they feel better. Our schools play an important
role in health and mental health promotion and education, and fostering
well-being and mental health is one of our priorities as a school board.
There is a lot of work
taking place in our schools and board to create healthy schools and promote mental health and well-being,
including:
· Providing training and resources for educators on strategies to
support mentally healthy classrooms for all students, including holding a
mental health conference.
· Hiring identity specific mental health workers and developing
partnerships with community partners to serve the diverse
needs of our students.
· Developing a Student Suicide Intervention Protocol to help keep students safe in the event of
suicidal thoughts or actions.
This commitment is
also reflected in Board policy like the Healthy Schools and Workplaces
policy and procedures. Setting policy, which governs the operation of the
Board, is one of the roles of trustees, and we greatly value
the input provided by students, staff members, family and community members. I
encourage you to look at the policies under review and share your
feedback.
We have a lot to look
forward to in 2020. At the Board meeting in December, trustees unanimously
approved the addition of new permanent Indigenous Trustee and Indigenous Student Trustee
positions. We are committed to Indigenous Education in our Board
and it is important that these voices are represented at the table. We hope to
fill the positions as soon as possible and will share more information as it
becomes available.
A message from the Chair of the Board of Trustees is also available on the Board website at www.yrdsb.ca.
Allan
Tam
Trustee,
Markham, Wards 4 and 5
