News & Announcements

SD48 invites you to learn more about the Early French Immersion program, offered at both Squamish and Garibaldi Highlands Elementary School, by attending an information session on January 9th at Howe Sound Secondary School, starting at 6pm. No registration necessary. Click on the above heading for more information on this Program of Choice.

The whole school did some caroling in the gym today.

Four students in Mrs. Sissons class put together their own newsletters this week. Sage, Bowen, Soldis and Sophia M designed and put together the layout.

Warm wishes from the Superintendent of Schools.

We have published the Winter Concert on Soundcloud so you can listen, enjoy and share the songs from our Winter Concert with your extended family. I was pleased with the way they turned out, and want to thank Carter, our student sound engineer for his hard work recording these songs live and getting the best recording possible. We hope you enjoy the songs. Please click here to access the album page. Our Album cover art was produced by Clyde. Thank you to all students who submitted artwork. They were all amazing!

I am continuing to work on publishing this album on Spotify and iTunes, however since these songs are cover tunes and not originals, there are a few more legal steps to jump through to obtain proper licencing to do so and be able to download the songs to your own device. This is a new area of learning for me, as Principals are not trained in music publication practices. I am discovering the hurdles as I go, and modeling to our students how we need to keep trying even when the learning gets hard. I am hoping we will be able to release the album in the New Year, on a platform that will enable to download a copy yourself. Thank you for your patience.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

From Your Public Health Nurse- important information about immunization clinics:
Local Vancouver Coastal Health Clinics are available to provide Influenza and Covid vaccines.
https://alpha.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine

Please, review your child’s immunization record and book an appointment at the Health Unit for school age vaccines that are overdue. Grade 1-3, please, ensure kindergarten entry vaccines have been done.
Squamish
https://squamishpublichealth.janeapp.com/
Whistler
https://whistlerpublichealth.janeapp.com/
Pemberton
https://pembertonpublichealth.janeapp.com/


For information about childhood vaccine schedules in British Columbia
https://immunizebc.ca/sites/default/files/docs/vaccine-schedule-infants-children-2022-v01.pdf
https://immunizebc.ca/sites/default/files/docs/vaccine-schedule-school-age-children-2022-v01.pdf

The PAC would like to send a huge thank you to all our families for their support this year. We’ve been so fortunate to have so many fantastic people step forward whenever we have needed volunteers! It’s very much appreciated. Through our fundraising efforts so far this year we have been able to raise over $9000! PAC funds this year so far have gone towards Papa Josh coming in to teach our kids music and put on our Winter Concert, as well as having Nash, tennis instructor, come in to teach Pickleball during PE time. We’ve also supported our school garden program and have given each teacher $200 to use for their classroom. We have some more exciting things happening after Christmas - stay tuned in the coming weeks! We couldn’t do any of this without our families support! Our next meeting is happening on January 10. Please come join us!

We hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays and we look forward to seeing everyone in the new year!

This week, many classes worked on Cards of Cheer. These cards will be handed out to different community groups as a Thank You for all they do for us and our community. Ms. Buxton and Mrs. Gilchrist's class made some beautiful cards for the hospital and hand delivered them to the staff who were so appreciative. More cards will be handed out this week!

It was so amazing to be able to get together this year with a LIVE Winter Concert. Having our students up on stage and working towards a performance for their families was such a treasured activity and opportunity. On behalf of all of our staff and students, I want to give a massive THANK YOU to our amazing PAC for sponsoring our artist in residence Papa Josh. Your commitment to this school enabled us to make this an extra special event and learning opportunity.

I was so proud of our students. They worked very hard over the past three weeks learning their songs and preparing for their performance. Thank you to all the parents and families who came on Wednesday to watch the show, and to those that zoomed in from all over Canada. I also want to give another shout out to our student leaders running the performance from our MC’s to our lights, sound and backstage crew. It is great to see our students shine in these leadership opportunities.

Did you know that most local black bears are born in January? Well, the students at Mamquam do! All classes at Mamquam attended a really informative presentation about bears by local bear expert Michael Allen. Students were captivated with tons of great information, live footage and even bear hides and skulls.