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Only two Mystery Lake schools achieved 90 per cent attendance in November, trustees told

Attendance, finance and the provincial government’s upcoming education review were the topics discussed at the School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) sparsely attended board of trustees meeting Dec. 11.
From left to right, trustees Guido Oliveira, Don Macdonald and Leslie Tucker dec 11 2018
From left to right, trustees Guido Oliveira, Don Macdonald and Leslie Tucker were the only members of the SDML board available to attend their Dec. 11 meeting in person. Trustee Saima Aziz maintained quorum by participating over the phone.

Attendance, finance and the provincial government’s upcoming education review were the topics discussed at the School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) sparsely attended board of trustees meeting Dec. 11.

During her report, educational services and programming superintendent Lorie Henderson revealed that the attendance rate for five SDML schools − Burntwood, Westwood, Juniper, Wapanohk and R.D. Parker Collegiate − dropped below 90 per cent for the month of November.

This has been a reoccurring problem throughout 2018, since Henderson reported that they registered 255 students with over 50 absences back in April.

Secretary-treasurer Kelly Knott said the district is in good financial shape heading into 2019. Now that they are 28 per cent of the way through the school year as of Dec. 5, Knott said their year-to-date expenditures are at 25.6 per cent, with no unforeseen expenses on the horizon.

Finally, trustee Leslie Tucker presented a motion to form an ad-hoc committee to pre-emptively counter the idea of amalgamating the SDML with other school divisions in Northern Manitoba.

This stems from an article in the most recent issue of The Manitoba Teacher magazine, in which Minister of Education Kelvin Goertzen hinted at the idea of combining school divisions together when asked about the upcoming kindergarten to Grade 12 education review that will start early next year.

“I hear a lot about why do we have so many school divisions compared with other provinces, why does Winnipeg have so many compared with other cities?” Goertzen said in the article.  “Well, that’s a legitimate question. I don’t know the answer to that. Those are the sorts of discussions that we should have.”

An Oct. 3 Flin Flon Reminder article said the last major amalgamation in Northern Manitoba took place 16 years ago, when school divisions in Leaf Rapids, Lynn Lake, Snow Lake and Churchill combined under the umbrella of the Frontier School Division.

Besides SDML and Frontier, other school divisions in Northern Manitoba include the Flin Flon School Division and the Kelsey School Division in The Pas.

Despite previous assurances that the province had no plans to combine school divisions, Tucker said Tuesday that this was a prominent topic of conversation during the Manitoba School Board Association’s Nov. 30 annual general meeting.

Tucker admitted that there hasn’t been any official word from the province about the topic of amalgamation, but said SDML should be ready in case the government decides to move ahead with this strategy following their upcoming review.

“All we know is that when the government starts saying, ‘We’re going to amalgamate to save money’ … there’s so much research that indicates that this is completely untrue and there’s not really any good sense in it,” said Tucker.

The board unanimously approved the creation of this new ad-hoc committee, which will comprise trustees Tucker, Lindsay Anderson and Michelle Tomashewski.

The first SDML school board meeting of 2019 is scheduled for Jan. 15.

 
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