The North East School Division will get a chance to give input towards the provincial government’s plan to reform school divisions.
The Perrins report, released Dec. 21, gives four broad options: create a single province-wide public school division, establish four large public school divisions, create between eight and 14 public school divisions, or realign the boundaries of the current 19 public school divisions with attention given to examining the two school divisions that have fewer than five schools, the school divisions around Saskatoon and the traffic patterns around communities. Not included in the options for reform are the province’s nine religious divisions and one francophone division.
Don Rempel, the North East School Division’s director of education, said Jan. 3 the board had no official opinion of the options yet.
“The board hasn’t had a chance to meet,” he said. “We’re happy to see what’s being considered.”
A panel of six will be handling consultations of the report. They include Ray Morrison, the Saskatoon Public Schools’ chair; Duane Favel, the Ile à la Crosse Board of Education’s chair; Janet Foord, a former Southeast Cornerstone member; Ben Grebinski, Prairie Valley School Division’s director of education; Doug Moen, the former deputy minister to the Premier; and Leanne White with the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation.
That panel will meet with school divisions and other stakeholders for two hours each over the course of January. Rempel said the division will participate and give its feedback.
“We’ve submitted some preferred dates,” he said. “We haven’t heard back from the government yet.”
The public can also send written submissions to [email protected] before Jan. 23.
The panel is to report to the education ministry in February.
Shift in governance
The report also recommended a shift in school board governance in five key areas.
Strategic direction and accountability: the report recommended examining the number of board members, standardizing the responsibilities of the board members and clarifying the role of the minister of education.
Effectiveness: the recommendation was to strengthen emphasis on education outcomes and consider creating an Education Quality Council to monitor performance.
Efficiency: reduce costs by centralizing tasks like IT, human resources and purchasing.
Consistency/Standardization: consider standardizing the pay of trustees and administration that are not covered through a union contract across the province.
Participation: reinforce the role of school community councils and enable First Nations representation on board of education.
“I think those five areas for shifts in governance could be addressed with or without changes to the school division boundaries,” Rempel said.
Stakeholders want no more mergers
While there was no official consultation while Dan Perrins was creating his report, 32 stakeholders did approach him for a conversation on an ad hoc basis. On a letter of transmittal on the front page of the report, Perrins said all of them supported elected boards, asked for no more amalgamation of school divisions and supported the province-wide education sector strategic plan that places goals on the divisions like improving reading levels and improving First Nations graduation rates.
“We didn’t respond to Perrins prior to the report coming out – and we weren’t made aware that we could, really,” Rempel said. “I could share with you that I think our school division would agree with the points raised in that letter of transmittal.”
