At the Chinook School Divison School Board meeting last week the board was presented with the Cyber School Report for 2017.

The report outlined some of the challenges and successes from the year, as well as some of the things that needed to be worked on going forward.

Shelby Budd is the principal of the cyber school for the division.

Budd said that the biggest challenge they faced at the start of the school year was communication, which they improved by making small changes.

"We really had to make some small adjustments to the things we were doing," she said. "For example, if I was going to be away from my office, I left a message for all of my students to say I'm away from the office today and here's how you can get ahold of me if you have any questions. We realized that when they don't know that, they feel a real disconnect. Little things like that have gone a long way to improving that communication piece."

She added that the availability of the Chromebooks and students being able to 'Facetime' their teachers and ask questions was a small change that also made a big difference.

Budd says that communication will always be something they're working on, but now they are confident with where they are.

"It remains one of the focuses because we are at a distance, so we are always looking for better ways," she said. "Right now we are pretty satisfied with where we are."

The cyber school saw an enrolment increase from 140 seats to 1143 seats, which represents about 500 students.

Budd said that the increase in students is just part of some the things achieved this past year.

"I'm just so proud of the way that the students have responded to the cyber school. There was a lot of building years to get this thing working properly," she said. "Students are reaching out to us with questions and know that we're there, and that's something that didn't exist probably three or four years ago, where it was hard to get that communication rolling."

Budd says that looking forward there are a couple of ideas they want to put in place.

"In our school's students are mostly online all day," she said. "I think it's important for them to have some time offline. I also think it's huge for some of our students to be able to get them involved in something in their community that also counts towards some of the work in their courses."

Budd adds that communication was once the thing that they needed to improve on, but now they are focusing more on course design.

"Communication used to be the thing that the kids would say was number one most important, but that has flipped now," she said. "I think that's because of our communication goal last year, and now it's all about course design. That's a reason why we are really looking at the whole idea of engagement in those courses whether that's the way we design our lessons, designing our notes and that sort of thing. All of that plays such a role in a major way when you're online, so those are really, the areas we are going to be focusing on coming up."

The cyber school employs six full-time teachers; 14 part time in 11 schools.

Budd says she's optimistic that when the budget for the Chinook School Divison is released, it won't affect them to munch.

"Certainly we will see changes. I don't know what that will mean for us yet, and we are preparing for a little bit of everything," she said. I feel confident where we are right now that we are going to be able to adjust to whatever we need to. We've got a great foundation, we've got a lot of great staff involved, and we've got the kids up to speed in terms of how this whole thing rolls. We are sort of through that building period, and now we are in a spot where we are in a pretty solid foundation."

Budd added that whatever comes their way when the budget is released, they are ready to roll with it.