The Tisdale office and transportation building of the North East School Division could be seeing upgrades.
The division’s board voted at its March 21 meeting to approve a tender to do the work as long as the price comes below $1.3 million.
“This is basically a much-needed renovation of the current building,” said Don Rempel, the division’s director of education.
The renovations will improve the air quality in the building and add separate wash bays for the buses, improving the work environment for the mechanics.
While the education ministry has approved the renovation, it hasn’t approved any expansion. Originally, the division wanted to house student services like speech pathologists in the building.
“We got our student support people out in schools in Tisdale, Nipawin and Melfort and we’re going to continue with that rather than a central student services office in Tisdale,” Rempel said.
Other spending decisions
The division also made two other spending decisions.
It will spend an extra $70,000 on top of $262,000 to replace 310 tablets, 445 laptops and 11 Chromebooks because the weak Canadian dollar has increased import costs from the U.S.
A vehicle will be replaced after it had an accident during a snowstorm – no students were involved. The division will spend up to $31,000, while SGI is providing $9,800 from the written-off vehicle.
