Highlights from the Flin Flon school board meeting held Tuesday:
Tile court
Trustees have agreed to forego traditional pavement for a basketball and tennis court to be built beside Hapnot Collegiate later this year.
Instead, the board will utilize special shock-absorbent tiles purchased from a company called Flex Court Canada.
“It has a little more life in it than pavement would necessarily have, and it’s got a 15-year warranty,” said Trustee Trish Sattelberger, board chair.
The tiles are also cheaper. Whereas pavement was going to cost the board $34,000, Flex Court will charge $27,000.
On its website, the Ontario-based Flex Court says its tiles “improve performance and minimize injuries.”
The basketball and tennis court will be built near the north doors of Hapnot, not far from the new Technical Vocational Institute. Workers laid the groundwork for the court last year.
Work on the court is to begin when weather permits. The project ties into the board’s ongoing enhancement of Queen’s Park and area.
Budget limbo
Work on the board’s next budget is in limbo until the provincial government announces how much funding will be provided to the school division in 2015-16.
Sattelberger said the funding is to be announced at the end of January.
“We have some ideas of things we want to put in the budget, but we have no idea about the costs and stuff like that until we see what the funding announcement is going to be,” she said.
The board’s current budget boosted spending by over $400,000, to a total of $13.72 million.
The school division is projected to have an accumulated surplus of $442,500 by the end of June.
Renos sought
Trustees will ask the provincial government to pay for renovations to ensure mobility-challenged students enjoy access on all floors of École McIsaac School and Ruth Betts Community School.
Trustees voted to add that project, as well as a washroom for the basement floor of McIsaac, to their five-year provincial capital funding request.
Still outstanding on the list of requested projects are a revamped physics lab, work to the McIsaac foundation and an exhaust-air handling system for the new Technical Vocational Institute beside Hapnot.
Testing knowledge
Superintendent Blaine Veitch announced that 42 Hapnot students will be part of the sixth cycle of the PISA testing program this April and May.
The focus of the international testing program will be science.
“Our randomly selected students born in 1999 will join students from more than 70 countries, including over 900 Canadian schools and 112 Manitoba schools,” wrote Veitch in his regular report to the board.
The testing will take place from April 20 to May 29.
Subs signed
Trustees filled a couple of staffing holes.
First they voted to place Shonda Beauchamp on a substitute teacher agreement for the current school year.
The board then placed Boni Schiltroth, a non-certified teacher, on a sub agreement subject to her successful application for a teaching permit.
