DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

The Limestone District School Board Director’s Annual Report provides a brief snapshot of continued progress on our multi-year strategic plan, anchored by the pillars of Wellness, Innovation, and Collaboration. 

It is important to acknowledge the significant challenges we navigated as a system as the pandemic continued to evolve. Limestone students, families, and staff continued to be flexible and adapt as new challenges arose throughout the school year. This year, we were fortunate to continue to operate and support in-person learning throughout the 2021-2022 school year. Educators and school staff did the best they could to support the model of learning most requested by our students and families: in-person learning, virtual learning, and short-term virtual learning. Throughout the year, Limestone continued to work closely with KFL&A Public Health and important municipal, community, and health care partners to help successfully support students and families as we continued to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am proud of how resilient Limestone students have continued to be throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. It was wonderful to see the resumption of valuable learning experiences across Limestone schools, including the return of extracurricular clubs, activities, and sports for our students. We were able to successfully run all seasons for secondary athletics, as well as in-person celebrations for Limestone graduates in June.  

The 2021-2022 school year included the return of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) provincial assessments for publicly funded schools in Ontario. The EQAO assessments underwent significant changes, with the newest digital assessments offered completely online through a digital platform for students, as opposed to being offered in the traditional paper format as they have been in the past. This does create some challenges when comparing assessment results from 2021-2022 to previous years.  Despite the ongoing interruption in learning over the past three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Limestone students displayed an improvement in literacy and math, as compared to the previous four-year trend. The steady results, despite the ongoing challenges – related to the pandemic, pave a way for continued growth within Limestone. We were pleased to see improved student engagement and achievement in the results, and Limestone will continue to use this data to support rich learning environments for every student. EQAO assessment results are one component in addition to report card grades, classroom assessment, and student voice to provide a complete picture of student knowledge that allows the board to move forward and implement strategies that support students to succeed.  

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Limestone students, families, staff and the Board of Trustees for the continued efforts, collaboration, strong support of public education, and advocacy for student wellness, innovation, and collaboration across our school communities.

Krishna Burra, Director of Education