Committee of the Whole: April 16, 2024
The Committee of the Whole meeting for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board took place on April 16, 2024, with me as chair. We heard from one delegation and staff brought forward two reports for discussion.
Staff brought forward Report 24-057, on the Technology Plan for discussion. This report supports the Strategic Plan by providing a robust infrastructure which allows students and staff to learn and work in a seamless, connected, and secure digital environment. On the learning side, technology has an increased impact on classroom practices and on our ability to further engage students through the development of rich learning tasks which emphasize collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. On the business side, technology is critical to the delivery of services, and the management of information and improves our capacity to enhance our risk management culture. During the discussion, I asked the following questions (timestamp 47:50:00):
Question: I would like an explanation of where the benchmark for the 0.5 Megabits per second comes from. This benchmark is at least a decade out of date.
Answer: At the writing of this document that was the measure but since then we have gone out to a Request for Proposal and the successful candidate is now delivering 1 Megabit per second. It should be noted that it is doubled, and it can be burstable beyond that as well, but this is all pulled together. For instance, in a school that has a thousand students, the pipe would be 1 gig and if no one is on then one student would have the entire stream. Right now, our usage in our schools is about 50 to 60% so it is never an issue.
Staff brought forward Report 24-058, on Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy for discussion. This report provides information regarding the new Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy and outlines the direction provided by the Ministry of Education to Ontario school boards in support of student mental health and well-being. Throughout the District, the approach to mental health is to promote wellness, facilitate skill development, and support early identification and intervention when problems arise. Support for student mental health within the District is based on the Aligned and Integrated Model (AIM) of mental health services.
Reference: School Mental Health Ontario, Aligned and Integrated Model
Please note, that the opinions expressed here are entirely my own and do not reflect an official position of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board or the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board of Trustees. Please note answers from staff are paraphrased, the recording can be found here if you would like to watch the entire meeting. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me using my contact form here.
Key links
Video for the Committee of the Whole on April 16, 2024
Agenda for the Committee of the Whole on April 16, 2024
Report 24-057, Technology Plan 2023 to 2027
Report 24-058, Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy
