Golden Hills School Division (GHSD) Superintendent Bevan Daverne was recognized as the Canadian Superintendent of the Year at the American Superintendent’s Conference in San Antonio, Texas, on February 16. 

While Daverne was recognized as the Superintendent of the Year in July of 2022, he explained the American Superintendent Association and the Canadian one have a good relationship, so the Americans also recognize the Canadian winner as well. 

"They have a very nice ceremony, they do it up. It is certainly a big deal in the United States, very large conference, I think almost 4000 attendees," he said.

Daverne explained the award isn't just about him, as it's more reflective of all the hardworking staff within GHSD who commit themselves toward providing an exceptional education for students. This was reflected in this year's Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs), where Daverne said he was very happy with the results.

One of the big goals for the 2022-23 school year was establishing a normal routine after two years of covid impacted schooling, which has been going great so far.

"It's been very nice not just being back in person, but without a lot of the pandemic mitigation with regular sporting events and sports teams and regular clubs and all of those kinds of things, that has been a big deal for everybody."

Getting back into the normal school experience has come with some challenges, as Daverne explained losing two years of regular schooling for younger elementary students has been difficult for many.

To help these students get back into the swing of things, Daverne explained GHSD has expanded upon already existing programs to assist students in catching up to what's expected of their grade level.

"We've always had for a number of years literacy and numeracy early intervention for our young learners. That's been really helpful for our younger students and post-pandemic, we've expanded that programming significantly. We're probably impacting twice as many students than we used to and we've noticed that students have certainly needed it. We've also noticed that it's been really effective and students are responding really well to it."

This program, among other supports, has played a big role in helping students impacted by the pandemic return to a normal school experience, which Daverne considers to be one of many successes of this school year. Other successes include but aren't limited to a new school recently being announced in Acme, which is still in the early planning phases.

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