View Royal families are getting a year-end message of thanks from the top of the Greater Victoria School District as the 2025-2026 school year came to a close on June 25. Superintendent Deb Whitten published her annual letter to families on June 23, reflecting on a year of student achievements and community support across the district’s 47 schools and more than 20,000 students.
In the letter, Whitten expressed gratitude to staff, families, and volunteers, and made a point of recognizing student-led efforts like the Youth Mental Health Toolkit and Climate Action Forum. Those projects were championed by the Representative Advisory Council of Students, a student leadership group that gives young people a voice in district decisions.
For View Royal, the letter also reinforced the local school pathway families can count on. Students in the area attend View Royal Elementary before moving on to Rockheights Middle School and then Esquimalt High. That K-12 route, part of the district’s Esquimalt Family of Schools, provides a clear path from kindergarten through graduation.
The message comes at the end of a school year that saw major changes at the board level. After a period of trustee dismissals and an appointed official running the district, elected trustees were reinstated in May. On June 15, the board voted unanimously to bring back funding for middle school music, early childhood educators in kindergarten classes, and the pathways and partnerships program. Whitten’s letter did not mention the governance shifts, instead focusing on the work happening inside classrooms and the community’s shared commitment to students.
With the school year now finished, the district has also reminded families that the Tolmie Board Office will move to altered summer hours starting Monday, June 29. The office will be open from 9:00am to 3:00pm on weekdays through July 10, then closed to the public from July 13 to August 3, before resuming altered hours August 4 to September 4. Regular 8:00am to 4:00pm hours return on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, the first day of the new school year.
