Wildwood Weekly News

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to 2025. On Monday we were greeted with students excited to learn and and share their Christmas Break experiences. We also welcomed Miss Jonzon officially to our staff as our new K-1 teacher.

Wednesday was a busy one with a delicious hot lunch donated and provided by Sammy's Family Restaurant in Entwistle. After lunch we took advantage of the nice weather and had one of our fire drills.

The week ended with a slippery Friday that had busses not running but many students still make it to school. Students that were present had the chance to do some deeper learning on topics and to practice their mastery skills.

Also on Friday students in grade 4-6 were given a chance to take a permission sheet home for Archery Club. I have also attached one below in this newsletter. Students who join will have the opportunity to go the NASP Provincials on March 21st. Note that this activity is capped at the first 20 students to sign up.

If you have students in Kindergarten to Grade 2 please look at the Dental services section below.

Some Grade 3s that previously received service will also be receiving forms. Look for these to come home on Monday.

Please note the upcoming Wildwood School Advisory Council meeting date has been changed to January 22nd, And that the next Friends of Pembina Learning Society, that is fundraising for amenities for our new amalgamated school such as the playground is scheduled for February 4th.

Many of you may have seen the recent new coverage of issues with regard to a PowerSchool data breach, please see the letter from Superintendent Dr. Dennis Parson regarding this below.

If you have any questions or concerns you can always reach out to the school through the office or email me at alanstoy@gypsd.ca.

Sincerely,

Alan Stoyles

Principal

January 21st - Hot Breakfast - Donated by Drax

January 22nd - School Council Meeting @3:45

January 28th - Pancake Breakfast by School Council

February 4th - Friends of Pembina Learning Society meeting @6:30 in Evansburg, location tba

Good morning GYPSD Families;

PowerSchool has notified Grande Yellowhead Public School Division (GYPSD) that their PowerSource support portal/community had been breached by way of compromised credentials of a PowerSchool employee who used the portal resources to access SIS (Student Information System) databases of many school districts throughout Canada and the U.S.A.

GYPSD immediately began an internal investigation and our technology team has confirmed that Division data was accessed and exported on December 20th, 21st, and 22nd.

Data potentially affected:

• PowerSchool SIS contains student information, including names, birth dates, addresses, and phone numbers.

Data not affected:

• Passwords, student grades, online registration.

• Please note banking information is not stored within PowerSchool SIS.

• BusPlanner is not a PowerSchool product and is unaffected.

PowerSchool has informed us they have contained the incident and deactivated the compromised credential, and there is no evidence of malware or continued unauthorized activity. They have taken steps to prevent further unauthorized access or misuse of the data and are proactively scanning the web for indicators otherwise. PowerSchool senior leadership is confident that the data was not released publicly and has been deleted. They are also strengthening their password policies and controls.

We want to emphasize our school division was not targeted individually. We are among dozens of Alberta school divisions and hundreds more across North America impacted by the break. We understand that news like this can be unsettling and we want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to address the situation responsibly.

In GYPSD, our cybersecurity procedures meet the highest standards of best practice.

Dr. Dennis Parsons,

Interim Superintendent/CEO

On Monday the 13th, Students in Kindergarten to Grade 2, and some Grade 3 students will be given consent forms for the annual dental preventive services provided through AHS at the school. Note that only students who's parents have consented will be part of the program.

Over the next few weeks all students in grades K-3 and some grade 4s will be going through assessments that are mandated by the provincial government. These assessments focus on literacy and numeracy and help to identify students that need additional supports. Data is used in conjunction with division, school and teacher assessments to create a complete picture of the needs of each student. If you have any questions please reach out to your student's teacher of myself.

Below you can find the updated volunteer package for 2024-2025, you can also drop by the school for a paper package and we can help with any questions you might have.