January 30th, 2017
In November, we asked our community to help us define in a single statement what the Waterloo Region District School Board is all about.
Over the last year, a big team of dedicated and passionate people in Waterloo region worked together to set a new direction for our public schools with a new strategic plan. We asked our community to help finish that process and craft a phrase that defines this innovative school district.
More than 2,500 community members, students, parents and staff voted online and our Facebook and Twitter posts reached nearly half a million people with more than 12,000 comments, likes and shares of our #WeAreWRDSB campaign.
Echoing our region’s world-class reputation for new ideas, world-class education and innovation, our community picked:
Innovating tomorrow by educating today
The words of our new purpose statement give us a beacon to guide our efforts. The statement isn’t simply words on a page. In fact, our system lives this vision day in, day out.
Like Helmut Tinnes, principal of Doon Public School, who is creating innovative ways of sharing school announcements by video using budding elementary school reporters. Or Jake White, who despite dropping out from Southwood Secondary School, is defining a new future for himself with the help of our U-Turn program.
These stories and more are shared in this annual report. And we have many more inspirational stories to come.
Our priorities and commitments
Innovating tomorrow by educating today is the last part of our new strategic plan that includes three priorities – each with associated outcomes – that guide the work of this board in delivering first class public education to Waterloo region. The plan also includes a series of commitments to which our organization is dedicated.
Strategic priorities
- Our students are first – each and every one
- Our staff, families and caregivers are partners in every student’s learning journey
- Our culture of innovation builds students’ confidence and success as they face the future
Commitments
We, as individuals who serve public education in Waterloo Region, are committed to:
- Service
- Integrity
- Respect
- Innovation
- Collaboration
What’s next?
You can read in more depth about some of the programs and stories from across our board that are helping us to put our strategic plan into action in the Director’s Annual Report.
We have exciting plans to share more stories and examples of our strategic plan coming to life over the next year. We’re launching a brand-new Instagram channel to share inspiration and examples of #WeAreWRDSB education and innovation. We encourage you to share stories and pictures from this report on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and continue to use #WeAreWRDSB to show our community how we are nurturing tomorrow’s innovators in our schools.
If you have kids – talk to them about what innovation means to them and how today’s education will set them up to be Waterloo’s latest innovation generation.