a history of curriculum services canada

X. 2000
Contacts and Contracts - and Website News
The year began with a meeting with the Minister of Education, Janet Ecker. Both the Executive
Director and the President of CSC attended. The purpose of this meeting was to inform the
Minister of the organizational changes in CSC, to document the positive track record in review
services, and to determine the status of the Learning Resources Policy (formerly Circular 14),
with a promotional push for OCC’s continuing active role in the implementation of this policy.
It was indicated that the Learning Resource Policy, after three years of development, was now
finally in the process of being written.
Also in January, contacts were made with Bibliocentre, a not-for-profit organization that
manages the acquisition and distribution of Community College textbooks across Ontario, with
the idea that Bibliocentre would fulfill orders that CSC anticipated receiving if it partnered in a
point venture with Central Store, an electronic order management system that kept an inventory
of school supplies and resources.
The bid for CSC to manage the reviews of Health and Life Skills materials for Alberta Learning
(Ministry of Education), K to 10, was also submitted in January, after extensive consultation and
reviews of items and appropriate fees. Unfortunately, it was not accepted.
Confirmation from the Ministry came in January for the contract to prepare for the extension of
about 24 partial secondary Course Profiles to full course profiles. Further contracts, tied to the
Grade 11 Course Profile Process, were mentioned at this time and confirmed in June.
A central purchasing concept, using an active in-house software management system, was
actively promoted in the new year, with presentations made to the Education Improvement
Commission, the Purchasing Manager of Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, and the
Catholic Purchasing Consortium. Inquiries were also received from the Halton-Peel Purchasing
Consortium. Plans to continue these presentations throughout the province were seen as a vital
marketing strategy, given the proposed change in purchasing philosophy. Encouraging praise for
the project was received from the EIC co-chairs, Dave Cooke and Anne Vanstone, both of whom
promised to promote the scheme in their reports. Discussions also took place with the Canadian
Association of School Administrators (CASA) to explore the possibility of a partnership for the
unrolling of the central purchasing system across Canada.
As part of a campaign to promote the new pan-Canadian service and website facilities, a
corporate launch date was established for February 29, 2000. As a follow-up on the promotional
side, an outside consultant was hired to conduct focus groups to establish the corporate impact
and impressions of the new organizations, and to solicit responses to the new website design.
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