The board of trustees for the Holy Family School Division will be keeping tabs on the work of four committees set up by the Ministry of Education that will determine the future governance powers of school boards in Saskatchewan.
Education director Gwen Keith updated the board after attending ministry and partnership meetings on the Education Sector Plan and Future Governance, at their monthly board meeting on April 12.
She also touched on the impact of Transformational Change as it relates to the powers being moved to the Ministry away from the locally-elected school boards.
“There is an intent to significantly reduce the powers of school boards through changes in the Schools Act,” said Keith.
With reports indicating the government might modify the changes to be made, Keith said, “What exactly has happened at the Ministry, nothing formal has come from the Ministry about that. The trustees association is in communication with them.”
She noted there was a strong push “to keep locally-elected boards that actually have a voice,” but the government has told the boards they want these changes to the Education Act done quickly, by this May.
“If there’s a change in the direction they’re going, they haven’t told us,” added Keith.
The discussions with the board included what the impact could be on various aspects of the school division’s operations, as the Ministry will be looking for any efficiencies possible to reduce costs, as well as how these changes will impact Holy Family in such ways as how they staff the schools or how they do the payroll.
The Ministry won’t be the ones doing the local hiring, said Keith, but the Ministry might create a formula for how a school division staffs its central office or how many staff they can hire in the schools.
“What they want passed by May are the Education Act changes. Each one of the committees has a different timeline, and the one with the most aggressive time line is to change the Act,” said Keith.
In other board business, a board liaison committee met with the Holy Family Teacher Association on April 4, one of two meetings a year they conduct to go over any issues that might arise.
The committee did talk about some of the issues that arose from the provincial budget, such as the shifts in power for the school board, but they also celebrated stories of success from each of the schools.
“We shared bread together and had an opportunity for each school to be represented,” said Keith. “Like every school board, we’re still waiting to get clarification on some of the impacts of the implementation of the budget.”
The administration is working on Holy Family’s budget for 2017, which has to be in to the Ministry by the end of June.
Holy Family will host their annual staff awards night on May 12 at McKenna Hall in Weyburn to honour several staff members reaching milestones in their careers.
