Superintendent’s Update

Dear Parents and Caregivers:

In our 2022-2027 District Strategic Plan, our mission is to provide students with learning opportunities that inspire them to thrive. This year has been filled with many student successes and accomplishments that happened thanks to the support of staff, parents, and community partners.

As the 2024-2025 school year comes to a close, we’d like to celebrate just a few of these accomplishments. While it would be nice to have every accomplishment noted, we have captured some of the highlights below and look forward to continuing this tradition in future updates.

Some notable academic accomplishments in 2024-2025:

• A greater percentage of Kamloops-Thompson students completed high school (95%, 6 years; 91%, 5 years) than students provincially. All students in our District completed high school at a higher rate than at any time in the District’s history. Read more.
• Over 250 Indigenous student graduates crossed the stage this year, which is the largest Indigenous graduating class in the District’s history. Read more.
• All students improved in indicators of well-being (feeling welcome, safe, a sense of belonging, and connected to 2+ adults in school), and Indigenous students and students with diverse needs increased the most in sense of belonging.

Some of the curricular and extracurricular accomplishments in 2024-2025:

Truth and Reconciliation: Indigenous Student Summit

Our district has been a provincial leader in moving Truth and Reconciliation forward over a number of years, including this year. One way that we have done this is through the leadership of District Principal Mike Bowden who started the Indigenous Student Summit, which began three years ago as the Okanagan Mainline Regional Indigenous Education Council (OMRIE). This summit brings together Indigenous student leaders from 11 school districts to share initiatives that centre Indigenous voices in shaping education. The focus was not only on academic success, but on reconciliation and creating learning environments where Indigenous students feel seen, supported, and empowered. These student-led conversations highlight the importance of belonging, well-being, and culturally affirming spaces as essential foundations for meaningful learning and achievement. This year, over 150 Indigenous Student Leaders developed an action plan on mental health for Indigenous students. The resulting report was sent to the Director of Mental Health and Substance Use by the Ministry of Education and Child Care.

Fine Arts

Ms. Jaymie Daniels led Valleyview Secondary music students in numerous competitions, including winning Gold and 1st place at the Kamloops Performing Arts Festival. The Valleyview Jazz Band also won Gold and the Choir won Bronze at the Whistler Band Competition.

Ms. McRae, Music Director at South Kamloops Secondary School, won the Tommy Banks National Arts Center Award for Outstanding Jazz Director. Ms. McRae’s students competed in Windscapes Regional Concert Band Festival where they won Gold and an invitation to MusicFest Canada Nationals for 2026. They also won the Top Concert Band Award for highest level concert band and Gold in the West Coast Jazz Festival in Nanaimo. Two SKSS players won individual awards for Best in Festival Senior and Junior Alto Saxophone (Ethan Hansen, and Johannes Campsall).

Brocklehurst Secondary Music students, led by Mr. Jarrett Schill, competed in many events and their five student Jazz Combo won Gold at the Nanaimo Jazz Festival.

Brittany Zettergreen led Junior Dance and students won numerous awards (Gold, Platinum, First Place) and an Adjudicator Scholarship Award. 

Three music leaders (Jennica Alpaugh, Lori Jane Froese, and Taqueesha Lightfoot) inspired the Kamloops Thompson Honour Choir to earn the Marion Ellen’s Choir Award and provincials. The Honours Band and Choir had practiced five times and had a culminating performance with guest conductors.

Kamloops School of the Arts Grade 7-12 film students participated in the Flash Film Festival and placed in varied categories. In addition, elementary and secondary schools hosted parents, students, and community members to more than 150 plays or productions throughout this year.

At the 38th annual Young Artists’ Conference, 125 student artists took part in arts education and developed their own two- and three-dimensional art pieces. We now have 25 beautiful art pieces displayed at the School Board Office for the year.

Curriculum

In Language and Literacy, 350 students from Grades 4–12 gathered at Thompson Rivers University for the 46th annual Young Authors’ Conference. This year’s recipients of the Marg Van Dusen Awards were Emelia Willson (Grade 7, Juniper Ridge Elementary) and Ashlee Crawford (Grade 12, Westsyde Secondary). When asked about her Young Authors experience, Emelia shared, “It was really fun getting to experience all the different ways of writing. I learned that the more emotions that you give your characters, the more people will connect with them. Winning this award was one of the best moments of my life.” 

Battle of the Books first began in 1988 with 18 elementary schools and this year almost every elementary school participated. Its popularity warranted starting a high school version, Battle Reboot, which has been running for four years. While the format is more jeopardy-style with creative competitions, the goal remains the same—to encourage students to read and to foster a joy of reading. It involves hundreds of students in reading favorite titles and taking part in these friendly and fun competitions about the books they read.

In the Sciences, this year’s Cariboo-Mainline Regional Science Fair featured innovative projects from 140 students from four different school districts. Two students from our district (Benjamin Stroich, Grade 9 at SKSS and Joel Defouw, Grade 7 at Juniper Ridge Elementary) attended the Canada-Wide Science Fair, Canada’s largest annual youth science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) event, where Joel Defouw’s project won a Bronze Excellence Award in the Junior division.

Trades and Technology

In Trades and Technology, students from Chase Secondary, NorKam Secondary, Brocklehurst Secondary, and Twin Rivers Education Centre won Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals at the Cariboo Regional Skills BC Competition with several students from our district advancing to the Skills BC Provincials where they won Silver and Bronze medals.

Students at South Kamloops Secondary School participated in the SKSS Destination Imagination Team won a Provincial Championship in the Destination Imagination Provincial Tournament.

Students throughout the District also participated in valuable career exploration events and experiences, including Junior Fire Crew, Heavy Metal Rocks, RCMP Youth Academy, DATA Academy, Girls Exploring Trades and Technology, as well as Discover Days in Engineering, Law, and Nonprofits, to name just a few.

Athletics

Multiple Kamloops-Thompson secondary schools competed in regional and provincial championship tournaments in volleyball, basketball, curling, rugby, ultimate frisbee, and more for boys and girls junior and senior teams. Elementary schools also supported athletes from every school to compete successfully in cross country athletics, volleyball, basketball, flag football, and track and field. Read more about some of this year’s student athlete achievements here.

OWL Award Winners 2025

The OWL Award for Excellence in Public Education has been a Board of Education award since 2016. This award recognizes an individual, a group, or an organization who is a role model—someone who is selfless, generous, and who has made significant, system-wide, outstanding contributions to public education in SD73 over a period of five years or more.

Congratulations to this year’s Owl Award winners, Dr. Ann Cheeptham and to Ms. Lori Jane Froese! Read more.

Congratulations Graduates of 2025

Congratulations to Graduates of 2025! We had 21 graduation celebrations, including the Indigenous Graduation, a graduation celebration for new Brocklehurst Secondary School, and celebrations hosted for Adams Lake Band Graduation, Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw Graduation, and Neskonlith Graduation. To read valedictorian speeches, go here.

Year-End Letter from Minister Beare

As we end the 2024-2025 school year, Minister of Education and Child Care, Lisa Beare has shared letters of gratitude for parents, guardians, and caregivers. Please take a moment to read these letters as we head into summer break.

Bright Red Book Bus – June 30–August 15, 2025

The beloved Bright Red Book Bus will be back on the road visiting parks and schools to share the joy of reading with families this summer. Each child who visits the bus gets to choose a book to take home, read, and keep. This experience helps build excitement around reading, creates strong reading habits over the summer, and combats the summer reading slide that can become common while school is out for the summer. Explore the schedule here.

I wish you a wonderful summer with family, friends, and loved ones and look forward to another great school year in September.

Rhonda Nixon, PhD

Superintendent