School division reports on new hires, funding, and capital projects

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Horizon School Division resumed board meetings on Aug. 26 after the summer break. The division oversees 19 schools and two learning centres across south central Alberta.

 Bruce Francis, vice chair, gave an update on facilities and specifically the progress of the Milk River capital project. The school modernization project in Milk River is scheduled to be completed this Christmas. The Province provided funding to modernize Milk River Elementary School, which translates into upgrades of the existing and new construction to turn it into a K-12 school. The community provided approximately half a million to expand the size of the school gym.

 Superintendent Wilco Tymensen said, “All students, K-12, are currently in Erle Rivers High School and students will be transferred to Milk River Ridge School (the new modernized school name) upon completion, which is hopefully this Christmas. Once they are in the new school, Erle Rivers High School will be demolished.”

 Francis said, “The good news is that Ward Brothers are handing the building over to us officially on Nov. 1.” Additional finishing touches will then occur between then and New Years.

 At L.T. Westlake, the gymnasium floor has been replaced with a heavy-duty vinyl that has shock-absorbing qualities to it. Tymensen said that he’d seen it and, “It looks really good. It’s not like running on cement (and) it’s got a way longer life span.” A hardwood replacement would have cost $100,000 but the vinyl replacement came in at $40,000.

 Phil Johansen, associate superintendent of finance & operations, told the board that all the division’s base grants received zero per cent increases from the Province, which created issues in budgeting. “There was an email that came out in the middle of July where the Province announced $125 million of additional funding for enrolment growth and inflationary cost pressures.

“We received new funding updates and Horizon’s share of that is an increase of $353,000. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do with that just yet.”

 Johansen said that enrolment shifts can change the overall funding structure for the school division. Last year when two small schools lost some students and were dropped into a different funding tier, it ended up costing the school division about half a million dollars in funding. The finance department doesn’t want to commit to allocating the money until it sees where enrolments come in at.

 He said that having finalized a collective agreement, the department must finalize what the average staffing costs will be. “We can’t really do that until HR and payroll finish inputting all the new hires. We did receive additional funding that should take off some cost pressures and we’ll certainly put it to good use and keep you updated as to what we’re doing with that,” he said.

 Karen Rancier, associate superintendent of human services, shared some good news about teaching vacancies that had been filled. She said that many principals spent time interviewing over the summer and, “As of Aug, 14, all of the teacher vacancies that we identified before the end of the school year were filled.” In all, 15 probationary teachers and 18 temporary teachers were hired. Her department is still trying to fill about 16 support staff positions.

Rancier told the board that on Aug. 20, the division’s back-to-school backpack program served 219 students from all 19 schools.