2.++Community+Analysis+and+Report





Hope Secondary School is located in Hope, British Columbia. Hope is 150km east of Vancouver and is considered the easternmost community in the Fraser Valley. In the most recent past, Hope was called //The Gateway to Holidayland// as it is the hub of four major highways in British Columbia, all of which lead to the beautiful Okanagan, a vacation hot-spot in BC. Highways 1, 3, 5, and 7 all meet in Hope, as do the Fraser and Coquihalla Rivers.

Hope has a very transient population but that does not seem to affect its population statistics. Both the 2001 and 2006 Census data report a 0% change in the population. It is expected that this will remain the same in the 2011 Census.



A concern directly related to our community schools can be seen in the 2006 Census numbers related to specific age groups. There is a significant decrease in the population numbers between 10-19 years of age, and 0-9 years of age. This difference of 245 children is beginning to impact our schools. The trend over the next 10 years is that more students will leave our schools than are entering. This results in drastic budget considerations including school closures, staff reductions and programme cuts.



Hope’s economy is based on service industries. Almost every British Columbian can say “I’ve been to Hope.” This is usually followed by “We ate at (__ insert name of fast food establishment here __)” We are known for great trucker food, the last chance to get gas before heading up the Coquihalla, and for being the “Chainsaw Carving Capital”. Our Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Information Centre have worked hard over the last few years to make Hope more of a destination, rather than a pit-stop. Our new slogan //Experience Hope// has brought some visitors who love our hiking trails, river rafting and chainsaw carvings.





The lack of “livable wage” employment in our community has made it difficult for families to stay here, or consider moving here. School District #78 is the largest employer in the area, followed by the Fraser Canyon Hospital and the RCMP, which covers highway patrol and community policing needs. The recent relocation of Emil Anderson Construction/Maintenance from Hope to Kelowna hit our community hard. We lost some “good” families who moved for their jobs, and others who found employment elsewhere.

According to the 2006 Census, the median income for persons 15 years and over (working full time, full year) was $21,305. According to the same Census data, the majority of employed persons worked in sales and service occupations, or trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations. (I must admit that it was with much jealousy that I looked at Gloria Piovesan’s community profile for Collingwood School.)

[|Hope Secondary] is a grade 8-12 high school situated in the centre of [|School District #78]. Within the larger Fraser-Cascade school district there are 2 other high schools; Agassiz Elementary-Secondary serving students in grades 7-12 in the Agassiz/Harrison Hot Springs district, and Boston Bar Elementary-Secondary, serving students in kindergarten-grade 12 in Boston Bar and the Fraser Canyon region. There are two feeder schools for Hope Secondary; C.E. Barry Intermediate School and Silver Creek Elementary. Up until two years ago, a bus was available for students to come from Boston Bar to Hope. This service was removed in an effort to keep more students in Boston Bar. The school buses that serve Hope Secondary come from as far away as Spuzzum, along Highway 1, and Sunshine Valley, along the Hope-Princeton Highway.
 * __School Profile:__**

Hope Secondary, according to the October 1, 2010 BCeSis Enrolment Tally, has 393 students. The office staff reports that this has only decreased by one student as of January 1, 2011. The grade distribution is as follows: According to Ministry of Education data, 120 of our students are Aboriginal. They are supported by two, full-time First Nations Support Workers and one, part-time Aboriginal Mentor. We have a very active Learning Centre to support our students with special needs. There are two teachers and six support staff for 53 special education students. The ministry also reports that we have six identified Gifted students. Our school is predominantly English speaking. We do have 2% of our students who speak Korean at home, 1% who speak Punjabi, and .3% who speak Russian. We have five ESL students, 175 students enrolled in Core French, and 10 students in a Career Technical Program.

There are 27 teaching staff and 2 administrators at Hope Secondary. This includes the teacher-librarian who teaches two of the eight blocks in our timetable. Academically, Hope Secondary works hard to offer its students a variety of course options and opportunities for success. We have two special programs; AceIt, an industry training program where students earn high school graduation credits and a head start towards the completion of an apprenticeship program, and AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination), a post-secondary readiness program designed to increase the number of students entering college and university by focusing on the “academic middle.”

Our academic performance and graduation rates have been relatively consistent over the past five years, according to the Fraser Institute.



__**Partnerships:**__ In any community there are many potential partners that can offer services and resources for a school. I think this is especially important in a smaller community that needs to work together to offer more for its citizens. I have found that Hope is very open to partnerships between school and community and that people enjoy the opportunity to work with our students.

The most obvious partnership for our school library is our local branch of the [|Fraser Valley Regional Library]. We have already had our “library ladies” visit classes with book talks and we even offered our students the opportunity to get a library card during these talks. I would like to see this partnership grow. I really like the idea expressed in the pod cast for this theme to work with the public library for resources for courses and units in our school. I think that this could increase the clientele at both our school and public libraries.

Another potential partner in our community is the [|Hope and District Chamber of Commerce]. I think this organization is an excellent source of “local experts” who could not only offer knowledge but potential resources through fundraising and sponsorship.

In Hope we also have an interesting organization called [|Free Rein Associates]. The purpose of Free Rein is “to provide training services and resources in collaborative community partnerships.” They offer literacy programs, employment assistance, and youth outreach initiatives.

Our local First Nations bands also offer a wealth of partnership opportunities. The [|Sto:lo Nation] is very active in our community and there are many speakers, presenters and elders who visit our school regularly. I think there is a great opportunity to work with our First Nations community members to develop an interesting collection of resources available to all our students.

The [|University of the Fraser Valley] is becoming more and more influential in our small Hope community and our larger Fraser Valley community. There is a Hope campus of the university, and currently we have 5 students enrolled in a Halq'eméylem language course through the university. There have been a few attempts over the past 5 years, to move the Hope campus into our high school. This met quite a bit of resistance and so now the university uses a vacated school district building for their Hope campus. I think there is an excellent opportunity to offer library resources for the local university students within our library or share resources through inter-library loans.

Another partnership that I would like to develop is with our Hope Secondary alumni. I know that just within the 18 years I have been teaching at Hope Secondary, we have some graduates who are doing amazing things. There are [|authors], journalists, police officers and alumni living around the world who could offer their experience and knowledge to our students. I think this kind of “real life” connection would really benefit our students.

Hope Secondary runs a 4 x 8 linear timetable. This year there are three blocks of Social Studies 10 enrolling 76 students. Like most small schools, staffing courses like social studies is different every year. This year the teacher who began the year teaching all three blocks left suddenly two weeks before Christmas, on a medical leave. His degree in education is for secondary English, but, as is often the case, he has had to teach out of his area as our school enrollment has decreased. The teacher who is currently teaching the three blocks is a second year teacher working on call. Her degree is in secondary social studies and she taught Social Studies 10 as part of her practicum. These two teachers have very different teaching styles and so the needs for resources have been very different. The original teacher does a year-long annotated bibliography project that utilizes many of the library's print resources. He also uses many visual resources, especially film, in his presentation of the curriculum. The current teacher is more varied in her resource needs and has just begun to explore Hope Secondary's resources. Unfortunately, the on-call teacher is only working month-to-month at this time, as it is not known when the original teacher will return.
 * __Course and Program Information:__**

There is another teacher on staff who would like to teach Social Studies 10 and who I considered when choosing this subject and grade. She is elementary trained but has been working in the high school for 5 years. She teaches our Law 12 and Social Justice 12 classes and sponsors our social justice club - SH(OUT) (Students Helping OUT). Because the administration carefully considers our personal preferences when selecting teachers for courses, I decided to include this third teacher in my evaluation of our library and the Social Studies 10 curriculum.

As I am not currently the librarian at Hope Secondary, my evaluation of how students use our collection is mostly based on my observations of the library users and my discussions with the current librarian. I have also been working with the replacement Social Studies 10 teacher as a mentor so I have her input as well. It is generally agreed by all three of us that the students' use of resources begins (and pretty much ends) with the computers and the internet. Unless specifically told they have to use a print resource, the students will automatically go to on-line sources. The current librarian says that he is almost never asked for assistance in finding a book, and that his circulation of non-fiction books has declined to the point of almost non-existence in the past 4 years. Both the current Social Studies 10 replacement teacher and the teacher hoping to teach the course next year have some assignments they would like to try that include print resources and primary sources of information.

Because the library is not open at consistent times, the students do not find it to be a consistent source of information. The teacher-librarian has to close the library during his teaching blocks and it is closed for half of the lunch period each day. Many of our students take the bus to and from school and this also limits their access to the library. The library schedule is flexible and teachers can sign their classes into the library through the use of a calendar posted on the library office door. According to the librarian, the only classes who use the actual library for things other than the computers are social studies.

Another thing that I see preventing students access to the library resources is access to a library catalogue. At this time, the only access is available at the circulation desk. This means that students have to ask for assistance, something that many will not do. There are 15 computers in the library for student use and the students use them for on-line research in the same way they would research at home. The current library on-line resources are not available at home. It is my intention next year, when I am the teacher-librarian, to create a library blog and hopefully make access to library resources available at home as well as in the physical library space.

Through this process and the work I did in a previous course, it has become obvious that our school library is under utilized by both staff and students. I believe this is in part due to the fact that our current teacher-librarian has become more of a technology support person and he does not have the time necessary to promote information literacy skills and the library itself. The suggestion by Bishop (2007) to conduct a student and staff survey will be an important step in bringing people back to the library. I believe that the survey itself will not only provide me with information as the new librarian, but will act as the first step in re-introducing the library to the staff and students.
 * __Reflections:__**

This year I saw many of my students get excited by books as I worked to create a class library. I asked them why they don't just go to our school library to take out books and they really didn't have an answer. I saw the same excitement when I had the adolescent literature "expert" from the Fraser Valley Regional Library come do an hour-long book talk with my grade 11 classes. They were all excited to take out books and wanted them right away. What do I learn from this? Take the information/books/resources to them! It needs to be "in their face" or they forget it's there. This is the same for the staff. I need to go to them, bring resources to them and promote, promote, promote.