(File Photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

NESD Board Meeting

NESD talks enrolment, COVID funding at board meeting

Sep 15, 2020 | 4:39 PM

The North East School Divison (NESD) held its first in-person board meeting of the 2020-2021 school year on Tuesday, Sept. 15

A number of topics covered at the meeting included enrolment, school sustainability and COVID-19 funding for schools.

Another COVID-19 related topic had to do with preparing for an outbreak if one does happen in one of the NESD schools. As it stands, if one students were to get the virus, it would not constitute shutting down the school or even a classroom. That individual would be sent home or told to stay home and contact 811 and follow the health protocols.

However, if there were two students in one cohort, or classroom, it is likely that the whole group could be sent home, or possibly just the close contacts.

Director of Education Don Rempel said it would have to take a number of positive cases for a school to shut down.

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“There would have to be a large number of cases in a large number of classrooms, in a large school in order to have the whole school shut down,” he said.

The Board of Education also approved some extra funding for schools due to COVID-19. A total of $165,000 was approved to help curb the spread of the virus in various ways. Of that $60,000 is earmarked for hand washing stations, another $60,000 is set for hand sanitizer, face shields, gloves and gowns, and other PPE. The other $45,000 is going toward face masks, but that is a cost that could change moving forward. If the provincial government continues to provide masks, those funds wouldn’t be needed. The current supply is expected to last only between 55 and 60 school days.

Only about $40,000 was budgeted for COVID-19 expenses at first, but Rempel said they had to adjust accordingly.

“Some of our projections on what we’d have to buy for hand washing stations and PPE were a little bit off,” Rempel told northeastNOW. “So we’re just adjusting as we move forward on the costs and the amounts.”

The $165,000 comes from the unrestricted accumulated surplus, and if possible Rempel said they will continue to apply for funding from the provincial government through the Safe School Plan.

Outside of COVID-19 related topics, the Board of Education went over enrolment for the 2020-2021 school year as well as school sustainability.

Enrolment is down in the NESD as of Sept. 14 year over year. There are 128 fewer students right now compared to the same month last year. The board members and Rempel expect a few more students to be enrolled as the next month progress, with a partial uptick possibly coming when hockey players join their Junior A and U18 AAA teams in the area.

Even with enrolment down in the NESD, Rempel said it all works out and that they are comfortable with the amount of students coming to school.

There were four schools listed on the 2020-2021 sustainability report. Schools are listed on the report if they have less than 89 students for a kindergarten to Grade 12 school, or less than 59 students for a kindergarten to Grade 8 school. The schools listed this year are Arborfield (74 students), Bjorkdale (64), and Star City (61) for K to 12 schools, and Gronlid Central School (30) for K to 8.

Rempel said those schools aren’t a concern at the moment.

“They are sustaining themselves quite well,” he said. “One of our schools took a larger hit than others but they are still above what our smaller school numbers would be.”

Those schools listed are brought to the board to discuss whether changes need to be made at the school to make it more sustainable.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6