The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Creighton is exempt from a sweeping new round of school division amalgamations, but that's no guarantee a merger won't take place in the future. The Saskatchewan government is asking that Creighton and the two other northern school divisions investigate a possible amalgamation. "There's certainly a belief that they need to look at how best to govern themselves, and, is there a need for three?" said Don Sangster, executive director of school finance, from his Regina office. Remoteness was a factor in the government's decision to exempt the three northern divisions, but Sangster said that fact is not insurmountable. "Yes, they're remote, but at the same time, they have some of their services delivered out of Prince Albert, so it's not as though it's impossible to have some connection," he said. The government has drawn up new, larger school division boundaries that will take effect on Jan. 1, 2006. The amalgamations will reduce the number of divisions in the province by over 60 per cent, down to about 30. This won't result in school closures, but in the centralization of governance within each division. "The new school division boundaries provide for more comparable financial resources among divisions," read a government press release. "This is important in calculating grants and establishing more uniform mill rates across the province." Learning Minister Andrew Thomson said in the release that the new boundaries "provide us with a strong start in making our school system more sustainable as it faces changing demographics, growing infrastructure and service demands and concerns about growing costs to support the system in the province."
