As school winds down for the winter holiday, the Living Sky School Division board has been in high gear, as they receive year-end reports and prepare for the semester ahead.
Ford says goodbye
The last human resources report for 2010 was also Dianne Ford's last report as LSSD's superintendent of human resources.
After five years with the division, Ford accepted a position as chief of staff for the Ministry of Finance.
LSSD board chair, Ken Arsenault, said although he was sad to see Ford go, he was happy to see her move forward in her career.
"We realize that you're leaving a position you've excelled at, and will no doubt excel in your future career," said Arsenault.
Ford thanked the board for having given her a wonderful five years, adding, "It really is a caring school division and people matter here."
"This is the best school division in the province," she said.
One of the highlights of Ford's report was the increase of available counselling services at several schools.
Medstead and Kerrobert schools saw an increase of four hours per week of available counselling services and Battleford Central School had an increase of eight hours per week. McKitrick School saw their counselling services increase by 12 hours per week, which gives them a full-time counsellor.
The school division also added an education psychologist position to the budget, however, that position remains vacant.
In terms of labour relations, the school division is in the second year of the three-year LINC agreement, and Ford reported "things are going well."
The Local Implementation and Negotiations Committee agreement allows a committee comprised of members of the LSSD administration, board of education and teaching community to collectively negotiate such workplace policies as length of sick or compassionate leave, professional development bursaries and travel allowances. The agreement was entered into July 1, 2009, and will expire June 30, 2012.
"The extended compassionate leave continues to make a difference in peoples' lives," said Ford of the benefits seen by teachers.
Another subject broached by Ford was representative workforce. As the provincial program, Aboriginal Employment Development program, was cancelled, the LSSD is broadening efforts to create a representative workforce. Teachers and administration are undergoing myths and misconceptions training and an aboriginal cultural awareness presentation has been developed.
The board did note, however, the difficulty in assessing the effectiveness of these methods in attracting and retaining staff of aboriginal descent, as employees are not required to identify their ethnicity.
Ford wrapped up her report with a discussion on exit interviews, which invite feedback from departing employees.
Driving around the world
Another report received by the school board was that of Colin Westgard, transportation manager.
A total of 3,182 students are transported to and from school on 121 routes in the Living Sky School Division.
Every day, the school buses travel 19,715 kilometers.
"About every two days, we circle the Earth," said Westgard.
The school buses also travel approximately 200,000 kilometers per year for extracurricular trips, such as field trips.
Westgard said the transportation division faces two main challenges: lengthy routes and finding drivers.
"We do have an issue with the length of routes," said Westgard, explaining some students are on the bus for over two and a half hours each day.
He suggested the board consider splitting some routes and possibly adding smaller buses to the fleet.
Westgard told the board there have been three resignations and "a rash of leaves" among drivers, including medical and parental leave of absences.
He said it is sometimes difficult to find drivers, especially since many households these days have two working parents.
"We're competing against the oil patch, we're competing against higher wages and people are busy," said Westgard.
Currently, there are 67 full-time drivers and an average of 40 casual drivers.
The board received the report, and chief financial officer Ray Kopera commended Westgard, and assistant transportation manager Jacquie Foster on their work.
"Colin and Jacquie work very hard to keep our kids safe," said Kopera.
Raising the board
Nov. 24, the board held their organizational meeting. The board voted in a three per cent raise, which is tied to the cost of living. It had been decided a number of years ago to increase wages on an annual basis rather than have a large increase every few years.
Board vice-chair Ronna Pethick brought up the matter of compensation for driving time, saying LSSD provides a lower indemnity than other school boards.
Board member Jack Snell disagreed with the notion of compensation for driving time, saying the board is already compensated per kilometer travelled and time shouldn't also be compensated.
"A big disadvantage I see is not only the cost to the board, but if we start compensating for driving time, other employees are going to want the same," said Snell.
Board chair Ken Arsenault said although he doesn't travel as far as other board members, he believes the current model is adequate.
"My day starts when I get in the car," said Arsenault, adding he considers the time he spends driving as being included in his salary.
In the end, the board decided against compensating for driving time.
Candy bar a keeper
Communications manager Shelly Janostin reported the findings of a survey done on the LSSD Student Hall of Fame.
As 15 high schools participate in the annual hall of fame, a survey was sent to each of the schools' principals, asking a number of questions, including what comments they'd received from parents, why some invited students did not attend, and if they would continue to support the event.
An overwhelming 100 per cent said they would continue to support the event. The majority also indicated parents enjoyed the event and the central location of North Battleford, while not always ideal, was agreed to be the best, as other locations would have some students driving longer distances.
There were a number of conflicts for the date, including sport activities, and one school's graduation ceremonies were held the same day.
Students were also given surveys to complete, both students who attended and students who were invited but did not attend.
The two most common complaints were the certificates given out this year weren't as good as the glass trophies given out the previous year and the space was crowded.
Janostin discussed with the board the option of selecting a different venue for the ceremony, but it was decided the Western Development Museum remained to be the biggest, most cost-efficient space, although they did say the CUPlex would be an option in future years.
Overall, students enjoyed the ceremony, with a few saying there should be "less talking" and the "speeches at beginning boring."
But the number one favourite aspect, reported by both students and principals, was the candy bar.
Students need not worry, the candy bar is a keeper.
Next year's student hall of fame will be held Thursday, June 9 at the WDM.
Fire alarm goes hi-tech
For the past couple years, facility manager Brian Bossaer has been working on an innovative fire system, the first of it's kind in Saskatchewan.
"One way is to have a bell ringing in the school, but how does the fire department know that?" said Bossaer. "You always want to have a back-up to the alarm system."
He looked at landline and mobile dispatches, but in many cases, it was unfeasible, especially since many rural areas don't have reliable cell phone coverage.
In the end, Bossaer decided to go with the Internet, which sounded much easier than it ended up being.
"We found out that everybody didn't know as much about technology as they thought they did," said Bossaer with a laugh.
But after working with CommunityNet, Saskatchewan's high-speed Internet system, ADT, electricians and fire departments, Bossaer, along with assistant facilities managers Harley Collins and Al Highton, have pioneered an alarm system that ADT representatives have said they will recommend across the province.
Bossaer also gave the board a brief demonstration of the asset management software, FAME, which allows Bossaer to prepare reports with the click of a mouse.
FAME lists all of the schools, complete with audits, projects, service requests and assets.
Each school in the division has assigned one person, usually the caretaker, with the responsibility of submitting requests for service, such as installing new doors or fixing a leaky faucet, which are then prioritized based on need.
When Bossaer approves jobs, he assigns them to employees or contractors, who will then see their new jobs online.
"They can open FAME and go, 'oh, there's a job assigned to me,'" he said.
Although FAME is being used by all the school divisions in Alberta and, recently, Saskatchewan, few facilities managers have been using the software to compile quarterly and year-end reports.
Bossaer received recognition for this when he was invited to speak at a FAME conference in Calgary this October.
Bossaer said the biggest benefit of the software is that anybody can come in at any time and have an accurate overview of the facilities in the division.
Chief Financial Officer Ray Kopera said because the board had the insight to invest money in their facilities, they ended up saving in the long term.
"We put our facilities up against any others in the province and we'll come out on top," said Kopera.
Board chair Ken Arsenault said he's heard horror stories at round table discussions, including teachers having to put buckets out to catch leaking water.
"Our school are in good shape and it's because of the work you do, so hats off to you and your crew," he said to Bossaer.
