Chinook School Division trustees get organized after recent school board elections
Chinook School Division trustees got organized for their four-year term during their first meeting after the recent school board elections.
The organizational meeting of the Chinook School Division Board of Education took place via video conference, Nov. 23.
The 10 trustees took their oath of office during the organizational meeting. The nomination and election for chairperson and vice-chairperson took place, as well as appointments to various external, standing and other committees.
Seven trustees are returning for another term and there are three new faces. Kimberly Pridmore was re-elected during the organizational meeting to serve as board chair for 2020-21 and Katelyn Toney was also re-elected as vice-chair.
Pridmore spoke by telephone to the Prairie Post a day after the organizational meeting about the work of the board.
“I feel it's an important position to represent the families in our communities,” she said about her decision to run for a second term as trustee for Subdivision 5 (Consul, Maple Creek). “We have a lot of things going on in education right now and we've got people looking for some direction and trying to ensure that the education that their children need is what they get. I felt that I took last term to get a grasp on what's going on in the province with education and so I felt this was an opportunity to come into a new term, but with a bit more experience under my belt.”
This will be her third year as board chair. Her message to the three new trustees will be that they should not feel overwhelmed by all the details and information they will receive.
“We are a supportive bunch and we just want to help them understand what's going on in our division and then we'll get to work on what the board needs to do,” she said.
The new board is excited to start their new term, and to identify goals and issues they want to work on during their term.
“We want to just take a good look at our policies and we really just want to get through the pandemic,” she said. “We really want to try and get back to focusing on just getting our kids in the buildings and providing that education for them and getting them through graduation and on to the next stage of their life.”
Shane Andrus, Kimberly Pridmore, Gwen Humphrey and Susan Mouland were acclaimed in the school board elections, while Katelyn Toney, Dianne Hahn and Tim Ramage were re-elected. The new trustees are Rachael Eliason, Rachelle Patzer, and Ken Duncalfe.
Eliason was elected in Subdivision 2 as trustee for the Cabri, Hazlet, Stewart Valley and Success areas. She went to school in Stewart Valley and Swift Current, and studied agriculture at the University of
Saskatchewan, where she obtained a master’s degree in soil science. She currently works as a consultant for the Farm Land Security Board, and lives with her husband and three children in the Swift Current area.
Rachelle Patzer will serve as a trustee for Subdivision 3, which includes the school communities of Herbert, Hodgeville and Waldeck. She graduated from Swift Current Comprehensive High School and studied vocal performance at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been a member of the Waldeck School Community Council for nine years, and lives with her husband on a farm northeast of Waldeck. They have three children who all completed K-9 at Waldeck School.
Duncalfe was elected as one of three trustees for Swift Current in Subdivision 8. He resides in the city with his family, and he has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years.
According to Pridmore the role of trustees is an important function within the provincial education system and she felt they are making a difference.
“There are just things that the ministry and the people representing the government can't possibly know what's going on in the smaller towns or even our city,” she said. “They focus on the provincial expectations in education, but they can't possibly know some of the local challenges.”
There were many challenges for the Chinook Board of Education during the past four years, but their biggest achievement was to keep the wheels of education turning.
“We've seen some drastic reductions in funding and yet we've tried to do our best to keep the support that kids need in schools, and here now we're trying to navigate through a pandemic,” she said.
She believes the key issue for the Chinook Board of Education will continue to be advocacy for equitable funding, even though this issue has been placed on the back burner for the time being due to the pandemic.
“It becomes a little bit more apparent during a pandemic when there are expenses that no one could have seen coming, but I think to make sure that we get the resources that we need to support the families and the students in our division is probably our biggest challenge,” she said.
A key issue with regard to the funding provided to the Chinook School Division is the size and rural nature of the area.
“Our geographical size in relationship to our population is where we find the challenge,” she said. “We have a certain number of kids, but we have that large area to try and transport them and provide all the same service to kids that are really spread out and in communities where the population is just small, and that's probably what hurts us in the overall provincial funding formula.”
Pridmore is hopeful the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education will be willing to consider some changes to the existing funding formula, but that conversation might not take place soon.
“There's been conversation about a review of it, but we're all understanding of the times that we are in,” she mentioned. “There is a new minister of education now, so I'm sure he's got plenty of priorities as well. We certainly hope that it continues to be something that they will consider reviewing, because we are not the only division that would appreciate a review as well. And so we hope as things get to a point that they return a little bit to normal and we get to the other side of this pandemic that maybe that can be a conversation that we can continue.”
She has confidence in the Chinook School Division’s plan that was created for the safe return of students to school in the fall.
“We're trying to just take it day by day, and implement the policy the way we wanted to approach it,” she said. “When things come up day to day, we're trying to just handle it class by class, or school by school, or community by community, and I think so far we're doing a good job.”
Several positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in different schools across the school division in recent weeks, but the intention will be to keep schools open wherever possible.
“We have had to close schools for a two-week period and go through a remote learning, just because the contract tracing showed that it affected too many students and staff in the building,” she noted. “So we've gone through that measure and we will if necessary in any building. Our priority is of course the safety and health of our students and staff. So the goal is to keep schools open, but we also know that their safety is priority. So we will continue to do that if we need to.”
The pandemic has a significant impact on learning, but everyone at Chinook School Division is working towards providing students with the best possible learning environment during this unusual time.
“We do know our staff are committed to making sure they can get the curriculum delivered to the kids in whatever manner that takes, but we do know that it's having an impact,” she said. “We're trying to just focus on the basics and we know that kids are happy to be at school for the most part and families are happy to have them there, but we do know the time lost in the spring due to the pandemic and some of the remote learning and things going on across the division certainly are having an impact. We appreciate all the hard work that our staff are doing to connect with students that may not be able to get into the building or in all those special circumstances where they just need to offer a bit more help to them.”