Students returned to class this week in both the Garden Valley and Western school divisions, and it came after a busy summer of work and preparations.
In Winkler, there were two key school renovation projects, while Morden of course was in the home stretch run to open the new École Discovery Trails.
“It’s shocking how much they can do in a short period of time,” Western School Division superintendent Stephen Ross said of the drive to get the school ready for opening.
“Some teachers had classrooms set up already; some were still working through that process,” he said. “Things are coming along really nicely … there will continue to be some interior things happening outside of school hours … there will be some yard work to continue throughout the fall to continue to get everything in shape.”
The new school has been a main focus of the division this summer.
“That is really where the bulk of the energy has been … everything for this summer has been towards getting Discovery Trails ready for fall,” said Ross, who noted the division is planning to hold an official opening event in early October.
Meanwhile, Ross said there has also been a significant impact on staffing levels as well.
“With a new school opening, having more sites just requires more personnel,” he said, sharing that there has been more than 20 new teachers hired for the school year.
“Then on top of that there is the increased student population, and then the third driving factor for the increase in staff was the board supported a lot of things that they had heard in budget surveys from the community which was more support for kids with exceptional needs and mental health needs.”
Ross estimated that enrolment overall was around 2,300 students, or an increase in the range of five per cent.
A lot of the pressure is at Morden Collegiate, where he noted enrolment had been around 660 in January but is now closing in around 740.
“That’s why we’re going to continue to push for that second high school, which we certainly feel the need for, in the next few years.”
Finally, Ross noted there has been some adjustments being made as a result of the recent announcement by the provincial government to ban use of cell phones in schools.
“That has caused us fair bit of legwork to get that organized and ready to go,” he said, noting however that the high school had already been following procedure where students turned their phones in or off when they are in class.
“The high school really is not going to have any significant change to what they have had for the last couple of years,” he said. “The other big change is a clear direction to staff that they are also not to be on their cell phones when they are supervising kids.
“The goal is really just for people to be present … I think it’s good for the adults to be modelling for the kids.”
GVSD tackles Reno projects
Meanwhile in Winkler, GVSD has been hard at work on improvements at multiple school buildings.
“It’s been a fairly busy summer with some renovation projects,” observed superintendent Dan Ward.
At Winkler Elementary School, the administration office was moved from the centre of the school to the east entrance.
“We’re moving it there because it will have much better sight lines and it will be much more welcoming for students and parents to come in and see the office,” said Ward, noting it would also be better for safety reasons. “School staff are better able to monitor the comings and goings … that’s been a conversation we have had over the last few years, and we were able to set up a capital reserve this year and put some money away to complete that project. We are near completion, but it will go later into September.”
At J.R. Walkof School, the link connecting the modular classrooms to the main building also been spruced up.
“That linkage has really been in need of major repair over the last couple of years,” Ward said, noting there has been water damage and some heaving as well.
Ward sees enrolment in the Winkler area school division overall remaining fairly steady.
“We ended the school year off with just shy of 4,300 students, and right now it’s looking like the numbers should be relatively similar,” he said. “We’re not anticipating any major changes to enrolment … our best prediction right now is an increase but a fairly modest increase of students.”
A key new initiative for this school year is having a home school liaison worker in place.
“What we’re hoping to accomplish is to provide a support for families that may wish to know more about
