The calendar for the 2018-19 school year has been set by the North East School Division.
“The North East School Division school calendar this year is very similar to other years,” said Don Rempel, the division’s director of education, after the board of education meeting March 20.
School starts for students on Sept. 4. For the first part of the year, students will have days off Oct. 1, Oct. 8, Nov. 12 and Nov. 23.
Christmas holidays will go from Dec. 24 to Jan. 2. School for the new calendar year begins on Jan. 3, a Thursday.
“Some of the discussion with the board was: are there two days that we could move without disrupting other pieces of the calendar to make that Christmas work and we just don’t think that we have that,” Rempel said.
There will be a day off for students Jan. 29, a week-long break in February from the 18th to the 22nd, an Easter break from April 19 to 26, and a day off for students on May 6 and May 20.
The last day of the year for students will be June 26.
Student-lead conferences will be held Nov. 20 and 21, as well as April 16 and 17.
Rempel said the calendar has to conform to provincial legislation for both teaching hours and for certain holidays.
“We’ve got 961 instructional hours that we need to provide for.”
For White Fox School, which has a longer school day for its elementary students so that buses in the Torch River area can stop on the way to Nipawin’s LP Miller Comprehensive, school will end June 19.
Horizon to send bus for Pathlow area students
The North East School Division will continue an arrangement with Horizon School Division to allow Horizon buses to transport students living in the Pathlow area within North East’s boundaries to a closer school in St. Brieux, which is in Horizon.
“At some point, we might look at a boundary change in the Pathlow area,” Rempel said. “It’s been three years now that we’ve had honoured that transportation arrangement with Horizon.”
The director of education said in the last few years, something had come up that prevented the two divisions from looking at boundary changes. Last year, for example, they weren’t sure if there would still be school boards.
Gronlid scholarship changed
A scholarship that used to go to a graduate of Gronlid Central School will now go to a graduate of the Melfort andUnit Comprehensive Collegiate that attended Gronlid Central in their elementary years.
The change was made to the Betty (Burlock) Hodge Scholarship because Gronlid Central no longer has Grade 9 to 12 students.
