Minutes of Regular School Board Meeting

January 18, 2005, 2004

6:00 PM

 

 

Location:            Regional Office, Grand Falls/Windsor

 

Present:

 

Mr. Bill Sceviour (Chair)                                      Mr. Randell Mercer, Director

Mr. Clar Brown                                                                        Mr. Charlie McCormack

Ms. Lisa Wheeler                                                            Mr. Shawn Brace

Mr. Terry Brown                                                  Ms. Claudine Wells

Mr. Scott Pritchett                                                            Ms. Marina Hewlett

Mr. Gerald Hounsell                                                           Ms. Bonnie Lane-McCarthy

Ms. Carolyn Andrews

 

Regrets:

 

Ms. Linda Cutler

 

Absent:

 

Mr. Randy Edison

 

Guest:

 

Honourable Tom Hedderson, Minster of Education

Mr. Rick Hayward, Assistant Deputy Minister, Finance & Administration

 

1.            Approval of Agenda

 

Motion:            to approve the agenda as circulated.  (Pritchett/C. Brown).  Carried.

 

It was agreed to move the session with the Minister of Education to the beginning of the meeting.

 

6.         New Business

 

6.1            Minister of Education

 

Bill Sceviour welcomed the Honourable Tom Hedderson, Minister of Education and Mr. Rick Hayward, Assistant Deputy Minister – Corporate Services to the meeting.

 

The Minister expressed that he was delighted to spend time with the trustees.

 

The Minister was given an opportunity to discuss a number of issues with the trustees.

 

1.            Trustee Appointments

 

Presently there are nine trustees out of a possible fifteen serving on the Board.  Mr. Sceviour asked the Minister to speak to the possibility of appointing more trustees to serve on the interim board.

 

The Minister responded by saying that this is a concern of the three newly formed boards.  There is a process to be followed and he is following this process, which includes submitting the names for appointment to the premier’s office.  This process is proceeding and there should be correspondence on this in the near future, hopefully before the next Board Meeting.

 

The Minister also briefly discussed the upcoming school board elections.  These elections are set for the fall of 2005.  Rick Hayward is the lead person at the Department for school board elections.  The planning has just begun.  The Minister is hoping to have dialogue with trustees and directors about school board elections.  Randell Mercer brought to the attention of the Minister the fact that the zones for each district are defined in the constitution of the board.  It is important to have the constitution in place so that the zones are named.

 

2.            Status of District Name Change

 

In the fall the board submitted to the Minister a request to have the new District #3 named Nova Central School District.  To date there has been no response from the Department of Education regarding this request.  Mr. Sceviour asked the Minister to comment on the status of this request.

 

The Minister indicated that such a request must go to Cabinet.  The Minister indicated that this process is near completion and the board should soon receive an official response regarding the name change.

 

3.            Director’s Contract

 

The Board has received a template of the Director’s contract.  There were concerns expressed with the language contained in this template.  Rick Hayward indicated that this contract was drafted to reflect the new Accountability and Transparency Act.  This contract is trying to capture joint accountability of the Director to the government and to the board.

 

Rick Hayward asked the board to respond to each section of the proposed contract.  These reactions will be taken into consideration before a final contract is presented.  The Minister indicated that this was a priority.  It is necessary to get various contracts in place.  Rick Hayward left a copy of the Transparency and Accountability Act with Randell.

 

4.            Administration Funding

 

Scott Pritchett brought to the Minister’s attention the concern the board has with the amount of administrative funding allocated to the District.  An extra $200,000 was allocated on a one-time basis for this school year.  If this amount is not kept in the grant to the District it will be very difficult to operate.  Even with this year’s funding the system is experiencing stress.  With the increased workload this year it was necessary to outsource several tasks.

 

Since this is the first year of the restructuring the Minister needs to know the pressure points of the system.  He said it is important to keep him informed of these concerns.  The Minister requested that this information be submitted to him so that he can review it and look at ways of approaching these concerns.

 

Mr. Bill Sceviour and Mr. Randell Mercer have been invited to meet with the Minister of Finance in pre budget hearings.  They will have the opportunity to express these same concerns to him at that time.

 

5.            Capital Construction

 

Mr. Scott Pritchett addressed this topic with the Minister.  It will be necessary to review the whole new district to set priorities for applying for capital construction funds.

 

6.            Environmental

 

Over the last few years the Board has had to remove underground oil tanks that have become environmental issues.  The removal of such tanks and the necessary clean up has been quite expensive ranging from $250,000 to $330,000.  Mr. Bill Sceviour asks the Minister if there were any plans by government to remove underground oil tanks before they became environmental issues.  This would be done at a cost considerably less.  This is a case of being proactive rather than reactive.

 

The Minister took this issue under advisement.  He indicated that as Minister he was committed to addressing to the best of his ability roof and window repairs for school buildings throughout the province.  He would now look at adding the removal of underground oil tanks to this list.

 

7.            Program Issues

 

Ms. Carolyn Andrews brought to the Minister’s attention various concerns regarding program issues.  They included the following:

 

·            Inadequate substitute teacher allocation

·            Inadequate funding for the instructional budgets

·            Insufficient program staff allocation

·            The need for a new model for curriculum development and implementation

·            The need for improved relationships between the Department and District

 

It is important to keep student achievement as our focus.

 

The Minister indicated that he was aware of these issues and that programming issues were very real to him since he had spent many years both as a teacher and an administrator.

 

8.            Student Assistant Allocation

 

Ms. Marina Hewlett spoke to the Minister regarding student assistant allocations.

 

The process of student assistant allocation starts in March and with the way the appeal process works goes until October.  Every year it is necessary to go through a lengthy appeal process to get the required number of student assistant hours for the same students.  It was recommended that the Department review this historical usage of student assistant hours over the last three years and based on this data assign a block of hours to the district for student assistants.

 

The Minister recognized the concerns with the process.  However, he does not see changes to this process happening soon.

 

Another point brought to the Minister’s attention was the issue of replacement cost for student assistants.  The budget we receive for student assistants does not have any monies allocated for replacement costs.  Therefore, it is necessary to hold back a percentage of the funds allocated to cover such costs.  The hours for student assistants are student specific and as a result of having to hold back this percentage students are not able to have the full hours of their student assistant assigned to them.

 

9.            Teacher Allocation

 

The most significant resource we have is our teachers.  Each year we are experiencing reduction in this allocation.  If the Williams/Sparkes report is implemented in its totality then we could lose about 45 teaching units.  Taking these units out of our schools could see a reduction in program offerings and an increase in multi-age classes, as well as, increase class size.  We have lost approximately 470 students in 75 schools.

 

Since the William/Sparkes report was released there has been no review of what impact it is having on the system.  This report is now approximately five years old.  There is a need to have a review of the allocation system introduced from this report.  It may need to be refined in light of the changes to our system over the last five years.

 

Also brought to the Minister’s attention was the substitute teacher budget.  With the reduction experienced in this budget it is difficult to meet the professional development requirements of our teachers and keep within this budget.  It is important that there be no further reduction to this budget.

 

                        10.            Other Issues

 

Rick Hayward told the trustees that the Board had approval to get insurance for them.  Also Rick said that he would follow-up with Shawn Brace the issue of software licensing.

 

The Minister will be visiting St. Paul’s Intermediate School on Thursday, January 27^th and is available to meet with the Board’s program staff on Friday, January 28^th.

 

2.         Minutes of Meetings

 

            2.1            Regular Meeting – November 18, 2004

            2.2            Special Meeting – November 24, 2004

 

                        Approvals deferred to next meeting.

 

3.            Business Arising

 

            3.1            CSBA Atlantic Conference - Deferred to next meeting.

 

            3.2            Board Retreat - Deferred to next meeting.

 

4.         Reports

 

            4.1            Executive Committee (Bill Sceviour) - Deferred to next meeting.

 

4.2            Finance-Property Committee

 

Motion:            to recommend to the board that we request permission from the Minister to enter into a land use agreement with the United Church of Canada to use a portion of the church property as a parking lot for school.  (Pritchett/Hounsell).  Carried.

 

Motion:            to recommend to the board that we request permission from the Minister to acquire the property currently used by the school at Eastport, from the Anglican Diocese. (Pritchett/C. Brown).  Carried.

 

4.3        Governance/System Review Committee (Terry Brown) - Deferred to next meeting.

 

4.4        Program-Personnel Committee (Carolyn Andrews) - Deferred to next meeting.

 

4.5        Social Strategic Plan – Central Regional Steering Committee (Randy Edison) - Deferred to next meeting.

 

4.6            Director’s Report (Randell Mercer) - Deferred to next meeting.

 

4.7            NLSBA News (Bill Sceviour) - Deferred to next meeting.

 

5.            Correspondence - Deferred to next meeting.

 

7.         Closed Session  - Deferred to next meeting.

 

Mr. Terry Brown recommended that we invite the NLSBA AGM to Gander on February 25 and 26, 2005.

 

8.         Date of Next Meeting

 

The next meeting of the Board will be held on February 8, 2005, 7:00 PM in Gander.  There will also be a meeting on February 22, 2005, 7:00 PM in Grand Falls/Windsor.

 

9.            Adjournment

 

Motion:            to adjourn the meeting at 10:00 PM.  (Hounsell).     

 

 

 

_____________________________                          ______________________________

William Sceviour                                                           Bonnie Lane-McCarthy

Chair                                                                            Recorder

 

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