By Spencer Sterritt

Sask. Rivers school division preparing for tough 2017

Dec 28, 2016 | 11:00 AM

As with many organizations and departments, the Sask. Rivers Public School Division dealt with significant difficulties and successes in 2016.

The school division saw success with graduation rates and community engagement, but the upcoming school year will pose a financial challenge.

“Our next budget is going to be difficult and I think there’s no mystery to that,” director of education Robert Bratvold said. “If you’re anywhere in education or even generally in the province you see our financial circumstances are challenging.”

Much of the stress comes from a funding shortfall imposed by the provincial government. In 2016, it was decided the school division would have to pay for teacher’s salaries, which totaled nearly $1.8 million.

For the 2016-2017 budget, Bratvold said administration handled the strain by reducing or cutting IT and transportation initiatives and projects so programming wasn’t affected.

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Now their challenge is finding what else can be reduced, since they’ve already made cuts in the previous budget. Bratvold said the school division is undergoing thorough analysis and discussing initiatives to maximize funds.

“You make the decisions you have to do, to do the best things you can do for kids and families,” he said.

Amalgamation with other school divisions is another potential obstacle for the school division.

Last week, a document called the ‘Dan Perrins’ K-12 governance options report’ was put forward with three options for the future of Sask. education. The report proposed merging all 18 of the province’s existing public boards of education, establishing four regional public boards to represent specific areas or creating all new boundaries.

Bratvold said they’re aware of the possibility of amalgamation but aren’t making it a priority.

“We want to be prepared and pro-active but the reality is we’re focusing most of our energy on preparing for the kids in our classrooms today,” he said.

Though 2017 may be a tight year, Bratvold stressed 2016 wasn’t a negative year for the school division.

In 2016, graduation rates rose faster than the provincial average, especially for First Nations students.

“We’ve put more attention on knowing every kid, every student and where they’re at in terms of passing the courses,” Bratvold said.

There were also significantly more candidates than usual in their school board trustee elections, which happened concurrently with the 2016 municipal election.

Bratvold said a strong relationship between families, teachers and the Sask. Rivers school board has helped students move towards their goals.

ssterritt@panow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit