A meeting between executives with the Flin Flon School Division (FFSD) board and provincial education officials took place on short notice last week.
Superintendent Constance McLeese and vice-chair Amy Sapergia Green did not attend the May 14 meeting of the division’s board of trustees. The pair were in Winnipeg following a meeting with members of the province’s ongoing K-12 education review. McLeese joined the meeting via videolink, saying the meeting had only been finalized a few days prior to the trip.
“It was a really productive meeting. We had prepared a report and we will post it on our website,” she said.
Among the officials the crew met with were former education minister Ian Wishart and Avis Glaze, a B.C.-based consultant hired by the province to help conduct the review. Glaze’s hiring earlier this year drew criticism after her role in a similar review in Nova Scotia led to the province abolishing school boards, replacing them with a single province-wide, 15-member council.
Heading into the meeting, McLeese said the school division had submitted data and a report to the group, which did read the information in advance and questioned some of the findings.
“We certainly feel that we were listened to. They tried to make suggestions that were positive suggestions and based on best practice research,” McLeese said.
“They were pleased that we used data to back up what we were saying, and they thanked us for that. They said that wasn’t always the case. They asked very thought-provoking questions about the report. They’d obviously read it.”
The Pas session
Another meeting involving the K-12 education review caught the attention of some trustees. A May 6 session in The Pas involving school officials from across the region involved some Flin Flon involvement. The majority of the trustees present at the May 14 meeting made the trek to attend the previous week’s session.
Board chair Leslie Fernandes said the well-attended session was part of a series of group discussions on education.
“It was an interesting format. When we got there, you had to kind of pair off into little groups. There were about 15 or 20 little groups, maybe seven or eight people each, and you were assigned a topic,” she said.
“We had some open discussion about the topics and you were assigned a topic to discuss in that group. We were encouraged to share our thoughts and discuss, then move on to another group if you felt that you had said your piece. In the end, the commissioners just kind of compiled all that information and we shared it with the group.”
An online questionnaire took place during the session, allowing those involved to post questions in real time.
“We did post a number of comments and suggestions, so even if you weren’t heard orally, depending on what commissioner was at your table, all of that data was captured in written format,” said Fernandes.
Hockey academy
Teacher and hockey coach Rob Abbott discussed the FFSD’s ongoing hockey academy program during the meeting.
Since the project began in 2016, Abbott said he has seen both the on-ice skills and the confidence of participating kids grow. He explained how new players responded to the program during this year’s opening day of training.
“They literally walked out on the ice, except for two kids who played minor hockey,” he said.
“I would say about eight of them were walking on the boards.”
Not long after, Abbott showed trustees a video of the group doing skating drills with vast improvement.
“It is practice. We don’t play around. It’s skills and drills. It’s learning how to skate,” he said. “We have tiny little fun games at the end, but it’s practice. With kids, you never know if they’ll find it too difficult; if that’s something they’re going to continue to do or if they’ll enjoy it.”
The program was designed for students to learn how to play hockey, particularly kids who had not previously had a chance to play the game. Most of the students in the academy so far have had little-to-no on-ice experience.
“I think the program has been a huge success and I’m looking forward to it obviously continuing,” Abbott said, adding he expected the numbers of students to grow for the third consecutive year next season.
“There was this one boy – a super nice kid, but he wouldn’t talk. That kid improved so much. He’s not playing hockey now, which is too bad, but he’s a player for life. No doubt about it. You can see a huge difference in the way they carry themselves.”
Funding projects
Three separate construction projects will take place at FFSD facilities. The largest is roof construction at Ecole McIsaac School and Hapnot Collegiate, budgeted at a combined cost of about $2.28 million.
Another project will add grooming rooms to Ruth Betts Community School and McIsaac at a cost of slightly more than $530,000. The rooms are used for students who have special needs for hygiene and include accessible bathroom and shower facilities.
The third and final project is upgrading the air handling unit at Hapnot, a project with an estimated cost of just less than $350,000.
Another project approved earlier this year by the provincial government – an elevator at Ruth Betts – is not on the list, with FFSD secretary treasurer Heather Fleming stating an elevator project is not yet at a funding stage.
“What it was is the idea of the project has been approved, so it hasn’t gone through engineering, them trying to determine how much it would cost and all that,” said Fleming.
“That all has to be done even before it can be tendered. If it comes in too high, we could say it was not going forward.”
