Highlights from Tuesday’s Flin Flon school board meeting:
Text option
Superintendent of Schools Blaine Veitch announced that students, parents and the public have a new way of keeping on top of daily events at Hapnot Collegiate.
The high school recently began utilizing the Remind system, which sends regular texts to anyone who subscribes.
The school is texting daily announcements and various happenings around Hapnot, which is piloting Remind before its possible introduction into other schools.
Veitch said there are no plans to use a text-based system to replace the parental web accounts that detail a student’s grades and attendance.
He said the grades and attendance system is better protected than the text information, as an outside body manages the texts.
“It’s hard to say where the future will go and potentially something like that could replace [the web accounts], but at this point it’s a pretty new situation, so we wouldn’t want to put confidential information on that format,” said Veitch.
Anyone wishing to access Hapnot’s Remind messages at no charge may text 1-204-800-5710. The body of the text should be “@hapnot-hap”.
Mini buses
Trustees gave notice of their intention to withdraw a policy that allows community groups to use the school division’s mini buses.
Trustee Trish Sattelberger, board chairwoman, said the division does not have the proper insurance to continue this policy.
The board’s current policy allows service clubs and other community groups to request use of the mini buses if they are available.
Now that trustees have served notice of their intent to terminate the policy, the matter is expected to come back to the board for a final vote next month.
No tickets
Trustees rejected a request to support the Flin Flon Bombers’ Tickets for Kids program for a playoff game.
Sattelberger said the board sponsored a game in the regular season and made it known they would not do so again in the post-season.
The board still received a letter seeking playoff support. Tickets for Kids sees sponsors purchase tickets for students so they may attend a free Bomber game.
Within hours of the board’s decision, the Bombers were eliminated from the playoffs, nullifying any Tickets for Kids sponsorship requests for the post-season.
Lunch program
Trustees voted to refer to the committee level a request to take over the Parent Advisory Council’s lunch program at École McIsaac School.
The board’s Strategic Planning Committee will review the request and, at an undetermined date, make a recommendation to trustees on how to proceed.
Parent volunteers launched the lunch program five years ago to give children the option of staying at the school over noon hour.
But with volunteers and staff in short supply, the group is asking the school division to take over the program in the next year or two.
The lunch program has proven popular. More than a quarter of McIsaac students – 100-plus in all – are registered in the program, though a typical day brings 30 or 40 children.
Top students
Veitch congratulated some of Flin Flon’s top band students.
First he spoke of 38 students from grades 8 to 12 who travelled to Dauphin for the recent Parkland / Norman Regional Honour Band workshop and concert.
Three Flin Flon students – Leanna Koop, Rebecca Kozar and Mikylo Odut – were selected for solos at the concert. All three play the flute.
Veitch also praised the four local students chosen for the Manitoba Band Association’s provincial honour band program this year.
As The Reminder reported Wednesday, those students are Mikylo Odut (flute), Allysa Richard (trumpet), Jemedie Morris (bass clarinet) and Eve Cooper (percussion).
Odut also received one of three scholarships to the International Music Camp, Veitch said.
