Board Highlights
Notes from the May 19, 2011 regular meeting of the
South East Cornerstone School Division Board of Education
Monitoring report looks at communications in South East Cornerstone
A huge amount of work has been undertaken in the school division in the past year to improve
communications with all audiences important to South East Cornerstone School Division, and
that work was highlighted during the Monitoring Report on the division’s System Goal No. 4.
That goal states: “Our division builds, strengthens and maintains positive relationships with all
internal and external stakeholders.”
Director of Education Dr. Marc Casavant explained the establishment of effective
communications with all key stakeholder groups is the primary focus of enhancing our
stakeholders’ understanding of the work being done in and by South East Cornerstone. Those
stakeholders include internal (division employees and students) and external (parents, media,
general public, MLAs and the business community).
Part of the work in communicating with stakeholders includes the creation of a new website.
Manager of Information Systems Justin Arendt explained the new website will address all
external stakeholders and keep them informed of what is taking place in the school division and
at the Board table. He spoke of many new features that will come with the website, as well as
what students and parents can expect from their particular revamped school site. The website is
scheduled to be launched at the end of June.
Another facet of System Goal No. 4 has been the work done over the past year by
communications officer Jason Antonio. Some of that work has included:
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Publication of 13 Board Highlights
Making 11 school division newsletters
Creating and sending out to families of two brochures, one on SECSD’s three priorities
and the other on changing student report cards
Publication of the Three-Year Education Plan, 2010-13
Media relations has also been one of the main areas of work for the communications officer.
Features of that area include:
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Monitoring the number of articles published about South East Cornerstone. From April
2010 to May 2011, there have been 597 articles published in division newspapers about
the school division.
Holding media scrums in four communities around student report cards
Getting three success stories from the school division published in the Saskatchewan
School Boards Association’s newsletter
Student Services co-ordinators discuss work done with students in schools
An update was given by staff from the Student Services Department on the work being done in
schools around Service Delivery Models for students and Response to Intervention (RTI)
activities. South East Cornerstone’s RTI model is based on an inverted, three-tiered pyramid,
with Tier 1 representing students who need little to no supports, Tier 2 representing students who
need targeted or group intervention and Tier 3 representing students who need intensive,
individual intervention.
The goal of RTI is to improve student learning through quality research-supported programs and
instructional practices.
Student Services co-ordinator Donna Steeves and Learning Support co-ordinator Tracey
Kiliwnik spoke of how there has been much progress made in the department since last spring.
Last spring a re-allocation of staff and service areas took place in the division, with re-defined
roles for Tier 3 Learning Support teachers, Tier 2 RTI teachers and re-defined responsibilities for
the Student Services and Learning Support co-ordinators.
Tier 2 of the RTI model has been a particular focus for staff, which includes revising SchoolLevel Intervention Plans, Classroom Intervention Plans and Behaviour Intervention Plans. A
Multi-Disciplinary Student Services Team was also created to plan intervention for students.
This team is made up of the division’s occupational therapist, educational psychologist, speech
and language pathologists and a department consultant.
Many essential resources were picked up to assist teachers in the classroom with RTI, while the
department worked with the Ministry on using different classroom environment tools to assist
students in their learning, such as different seating arrangements.
Some celebrations within the department include:
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Increased collaboration at the division and school levels
Increased supports within the classroom
Targeted academic and behaviour needs of students being met, monitored and measured
The language of RTI is growing, with the use of such terms as researched based; targeted
student interventions; monitoring; measuring; and differentiation.
First Nations and Métis Committee works with Treaty 4 organization
Board trustee Harold Laich provided an update on the recent work South East Cornerstone’s
First Nations and Métis Committee has completed. A meeting was held with representatives of
the Treaty 4 Student Success Program to determine the specifics of the pending contract South
East Cornerstone.
SECSD will pay 20 per cent of the contract of a person from the Treaty 4 group and will receive
20 per cent of that person’s time to work in the school division. The final details of the contract
still have to be finalized.
Laich added there have also been discussions of establishing a First Nations advisory council,
but that idea is still in the preliminary stages. The committee wants to increase the supports
aboriginal students receive and get the community and parents more engaged in their children’s
schooling. The committee will pick up that work again in the fall.
Sale of excess properties in south and west areas approved
Excess rural surface property titles owned by the school division in the south and west areas
were approved to be sold to the majority land owner of the quarter the property is situated on.
There are 62 excess property titles in the south and 87 in the west.
All these one- to three-acre plots of land are former rural school sites that are no longer used by
the division. This issue was discussed at the January Board meeting, with the Board saying then
that it approved the idea of identifying each piece of land and any buildings or notable features
located on the land. Based on The Education Act, 1995, if the value of the land is over $2,500, it
will have to be tendered for sale.
The south area of the school division includes the communities of Macoun, Estevan, Bienfait,
Alameda, Oxbow, Carnduff and Carievale, along with all the rural municipalities located therein.
In the west area the communities include Oungre, Gladmar, Midale, Fillmore, Weyburn, Yellow
Grass, Pangman, Ogema and Radville.
Board asks Ministry to review criteria on using portables in new facilities
The Facilities Branch of the Ministry of Education currently requires 40 percent of classroom
space in the construction of a new school facility to be made up of portable rooms. However, the
construction costs of portables far exceeds the costs of regular classroom construction, while the
cost to move a portable most often exceeds the cost of new construction. Those criteria were
established during a time of exodus from the province, when declining enrolment was the norm.
Since the Province of Saskatchewan now has evidence of increased enrolment in many areas, the
Board is requesting that the Ministry remove the requirement of portables in areas where student
enrolment is stable or increasing. The Board also intends to forward this resolution to the
Saskatchewan School Boards Association and ask for provincial support at the annual SSBA
convention.
Portable classrooms at former Oxbow Elementary school to be tendered
With the completion of the Kindergarten to Grade 12 Oxbow Prairie Horizons School and all
students now attending that facility, the Board has decided to put a tender out for the portable
classrooms of Oxbow Elementary School and sell them. When these classrooms have been sold,
the rest of the school building will be demolished as part of the overall plan.
B3 submissions sent to Ministry for partial roof replacements on four schools
Four B3 submissions will be sent to the Ministry of Education requesting that partial roof
replacements take place at the following schools: Rocanville, Souris (Weyburn), Gordon F. Kells
(Carlyle) and Pleasantdale (Estevan).
Ministry of Education approves boundary change near Wapella
The Ministry of Education has officially changed the boundary between South East Cornerstone
and Prairie Valley school divisions near Wapella, which means students in that area are now
officially residing in the South East Cornerstone attendance area.
In the fall, the Directors of Education from Prairie Valley and South East Cornerstone met with
parents in Wapella School to discuss the proposed boundary change. The Minister of Education
has ordered and approved the boundary change. Dr. Casavant will now be notifying parents that
this process has been completed.
Next Board Meeting
Regular Board meeting
Thursday, June 16, 1 p.m.
Weyburn office
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For more information, please contact Board Chair Carol Flynn at (306) 435-3556, or Dr. Marc
Casavant, Director of Education, at 848-0080.