School District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake) turned orange the last week of September, not just because fall has arrived, but because students and staff marked the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and Orange Shirt Day, an Indigenous-led movement to honour residential school Survivors and their families and communities across Canada on September 30.

While we acknowledge the significance of this day, our staff and students will continue to reflect and to understand the importance of this work every day. Reconciliation is about changing our thinking, decision making, systems and structures, and creating a new way of being and working together. It is the good work we will all do together. 

I am pleased to report on some of that good work that took place over the past month, and to share with you the activities, initiatives and events going on in School District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake). We do what we do for our students, and to stand for the most important point of Orange Shirt Day every day of every month – that every child matters.