I'm not aware of a best practices approach, but I know our school board in particular has been approached by several school boards across the country, including Halifax and B.C., in terms of the LEAD program that we offer to all refugee students who come through our doors.
The LEAD program is a specialized program that looks specifically at when the students come to us through our reception centres. We identify their written and spoken literacy and how much formal education experience they have had. We then place these students in small school classrooms with a maximum of 15 students with one teacher and a support staff member. These staff have a lot of experience, professional development experience, with trauma and working with students who have experienced trauma, have witnessed trauma, and have some significant delays. Once those students have been in those classes, they are assessed on a very consistent basis to ensure that this is the best placement for them. Once it's determined that those students are able to transition into a community-based school, that's what we do. Sometimes our refugee students can spend up to two years in a LEAD class.
We know that other school boards have come to us to ask what we are doing that makes our students successful. Not to brag, but we are very proud of our school system and the way we work with our refugee students and their families to ensure that each and every one of them is successful.