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.
The Flin Flon School Board will rethink high school French Immersion with an eye toward getting Saskatchewan students back in the program. At their meeting last week, the board voted to refer Hapnot Collegiate's French Immersion program to the Strategic Planning Committee for review. '(We want ) to take a look at our French Immersion program, see where we can expand, maybe, and make it better so that we can have Creighton on board,' said Trustee Murray Skeavington, board chair. 'Complacent' Trustee Skeavington added that the board may have become 'complacent' with the program, 'but now's the time to take a real serious look at it.' In June, the Creighton School Board voted to stop funding new students wishing to attend immersion at Hapnot. Saskatchewan students already at Hapnot as of June will continue to attend until they graduate. Part of the rationale was the belief that Hapnot has difficulty offering enough courses to let students to graduate with an immersion diploma. Trustee Skeavington said it is possible for students to earn an immersion diploma, with six Hapnot students currently on track to graduate with one. Shortly after the Creighton board's decision pull out of high school immersion, the Flin Flon board sent a letter asking them to reconsider and offering an opportunity to explore additional credit options. See 'No' on pg. Continued from pg. 'To date no response has been received,' said Trustee Skeavington at last week's meeting, held on Tuesday, Sept. 10. No students were impacted by the Creighton board's decision this year. As it happened, no Saskatchewan immersion students were scheduled to enter Hapnot this fall. The Creighton board will continue to send Saskatchewan students to French Immersion from kindergarten to Grade 8 at Ecole McIsaac School. Highlights Other highlights from last week's Flin Flon School Board meeting: With Flin Flon's Northern Bus Lines ending its charter service at the end of 2013, the board referred the issue of charter bussing to the Finance Committee for review. The school division utilizes charter busses six to eight times a year. Other bus companies will be asked about their rates. The board referred the potential purchase of about $30,000 worth of video-conferencing equipment to the Finance Committee for discussion. Video-conferencing equipment that had been at Hapnot broke down, so equipment was moved from McIsaac to the high school. Now McIsaac wants the equipment back, Trustee Skeavington said, so the board may purchase additional equipment. A single trustee's vote meant that the board will continue to have representation on a long-idle committee meant to bring more doctors to Flin Flon. The idea behind the Pre-Med Scholarship Committee, which included various community stakeholders, was to create a scholarship to help local students interested in becoming doctors. Trustee Skeavington said the committee has not met in two years, but a motion to remove it from the board's list of committees failed to pass when a single trustee voted to keep it. This particular vote had to be unanimous in order to pass. The only member of the board voting to keep the committee representative in place was Trustee Angela Simpson. Trustee Glenn Smith will tentatively serve as the board's rep on the committee if it happens to meet again this year. The board voted to refer to the Finance Committee a request for about $8,345 worth of equipment, including cameras, for the industrial arts department. The board voted to refer information on a school safety program to the Facilities and Grounds Committee for review. The committee will examine the Silhouettes for Safety program. Initiated by the Saskatoon Police Service, it sees metal speed zone signs placed strategically in school zones, right in the centre lane of traffic where they cannot be missed. The program was brought to Superintendent Blaine Veitch's attention by a concerned citizen who had noticed the signs while visiting Saskatoon. Superintendent Veitch announced that a new brochure on the importance of good attendance will be circulated to all students early in the school year. The brochure will include information on the division's attendance policy, school attendance laws and ideas on what families, schools and students can do to help minimize school absences. The board tentatively set the membership of its contract negotiations committees, with trustees Simpson, Smith and Trish Sattelberger assigned to teachers and trustees Skeavington, Simpson and Karen Yeo assigned to other staff. The board tentatively named its representatives on joint committees, with Trustee Skeavington representing the board on the City of Flin Flon's Traffic Commission. The school division's Bursaries / Scholarships Committee would include Trustee Yeo, with Trustee Simpson sitting on the Suspensions Committee. Trustee Vicky Davie is tentatively on the division's Workplace Health and Safety Committee, with Trustee Sattelberger on its Technology Committee. Trustee Smith is set to sit on the aforementioned Pre-Med Scholarship Committee. The selections are to be confirmed by way of a board vote at their Sept. 24 meeting.
