Board trustees to consider concerns over SRSD position cuts

Feb 24, 2014 | 11:46 PM

The Saskatchewan Community Schools/Community Education Association dropped off a list of questions for school board trustees to ponder on Monday night.

The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division recently told 10 community schools that as of June 27, their community school co-ordinator positions would no longer exist.

The current plan for the money spent on that staff, who were dedicated to organizing student food and community-related programs, will be spent on vulnerable students in over 30 schools in the division rather than 10, said trustee Grant Gustafson.

“When all schools will have resources where previously only 10 of them had access to that pool of resources, it makes a difference. So now you can have a program that will follow through, all the high schools for example, will have money to continue things,” he said.

More than a week ago, the school division’s director of education, Robert Bratvold said the co-ordinators will be offered an educational assistant position, but if accepted, it will involve a pay cut. The positions were funded through the Supports for Learning Program.

Delphine Melchert, executive director of the association, said she wants the trustees to consider all the assets of community co-ordinators.

“The complexity of implementing a community education program requires co-ordination. We believe that although Sask Rivers is correct in saying that there are more vulnerable children and that we need more areas of community education, those areas should avail themselves of having co-ordination,” she said.

She, along with community member Merv Bender, dropped off a list of collected questions and made a presentation at Monday’s Board of Education meeting.

Explaining what she was there to do, Melchert said “we’re there to bring information, to bring facts, to bring some ideas and to bring the concerns and questions from the community.”

That presentation did leave an impression on Gustafson. The idea that the co-ordinators could work in more than one school rather than cutting the position entirely was put forward.

“The idea of shared co-ordinators, maybe that’s something we need to have a real serious look at,” Gustafson said.

He added that some of the questions in the list had previously been answered by the board. He said the decision had been made after months of discussion although community schools found out at the beginning of the month.

Despite that, Gustafson said he’s also open to the e-mails and public response to the decision, saying “some of the feedback we got will help, I’m sure, fine tune the details of the program.”

At the meeting, Melchert had along with her a collection of 16 letters from various organizations and individuals in the school division with concerns about the changing focus for community schools.

Many, including Family Futures, Inc., Prince Albert Literacy Network, and Prince Albert and Area Community Kitchen, spoke highly of the benefits of community schools as a whole, and to how community co-ordinators are a part of that.

One, from Jeannette Eddols asked “do they understand that most of the hours [worked by community co-ordinators] will now fall back on teachers?”

The trustees will consider those concerns in advance of the next school board meeting on March 10.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk