PRINCE ALBERT — The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division Board of Education is seeing progress after revamping its Board Advocacy Plan and Board Development Plan.
Trustee Alan Nunn updated the board on the progress of both plans at their recent meeting.
This year, the board focused their development work on governance and leadership, as well as learning and innovation.
"Probably the biggest improvement in both of these areas for the board is that they become much more streamlined and strategic with where the focus area is at,” Director of Education Neil Finch said
The development plan covers the next four years. Each year, the board will have a new focus areas.
“In the strategic plan, we have five areas,” Finch explained. “The board, in their four-year term, will focus on three of those areas twice and two of those areas once. So in total they'll have eight different focus areas, but three of them will be a double up throughout their term.”
The Board Development Plan will focus on learning and innovation in 2024-25 and 2027-28. It will also focus on student, staff and board member mental health and well-being in the 2025-26 school year. There are focuses set aside for learning for each year of the Strategic Plan to 2030.
In 2024-25, board members took part in several learning opportunities, including new trustee orientation, SSBA events, local authority freedom of information protection training, land-based learning and governance training.
The areas of focus in the advocacy plan are vulnerable students and support for learning, facilities renewal, school community council relations and communications, ministry and elected officials’ relations and the Strategic Plan and Provincial Education Plan.
The board completed most of the actions and strategies outlined in its Advocacy Plan for 2024-25. Key efforts included engagement with MLAs and Premier Scott Moe, rural taxing authorities, school community councils (SCCs), and the elders council.
"With regards to the MLA meetings, I think the board really felt like we're listened to this year with the budget package that we received,” Finch said. “It was a much more positive budget, and part of that is as a result of their advocacy.”
The board said in a press release it would continue to explore diverse approaches to advocacy to sustain the current funding level.
"On the board development, obviously, I think the biggest thing there is this streamlining our advocacy plan is much more focused than it used to be, and our Board Development Plan is also much more focused than it used to be,” Finch said.
