Blog Posts

I have recently had some conversations with youth in our schools regarding what matters to them in their education. They point to having adults who care about them, opportunities to engage in different kinds of activities, and social groups that they feel a part of. This seems to make sense and I would argue this is what we hope to achieve in our middle schools for all of our learners. Given our middle school vision of “joyful, inquiry-based approaches that create access to experience and opportunities to develop agency, identity, and belonging”, we are headed down the right path.

The Honourable Senator Murray Sinclair remarked in an impassioned plea that “we need to pursue reconciliation consistently and passionately. Education has gotten us into this mess, and education will get us out. We see this as our challenge and our hope.”

Eugene Reimer Middle School and Blue Jay Elementary have teamed up for the first-ever Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and Equity Fair. Eugene Reimer Middle School students have been hard at work inquiring about what would make the world an even better place for kids. Grade 7 students concluded it is to help younger students connect with their emotions.

Ms. Mirjana Juric is Eugene Reimer’s Difference Maker. MJ, as she is known by many throughout the school District, is a long-time teacher in Abbotsford starting off her career at Clearbrook Elementary over twenty-five years ago. She continues her passion for teaching and learning at Eugene Reimer Middle School where she is the Home Economics teacher. She makes connections with all 650 students through so many avenues.

This past June, our principal encouraged Rimpal Bamara and myself to read ‘Building a Thinking Classroom’ by Peter Liljedahl. I will admit that his invitation initially brought about some feelings of hesitancy on our part about the thought of changing what we had worked so hard to create in our currently successful Math programs. We committed to give at least a chapter or two a read over the summer and found the book to be so well written that we agreed to make some big changes to the way we ran our Math programs beginning that September.