Peggy Revell
About 80 students, seven teachers, a principal, and other staff became part of the Rainy River District School Board at the beginning of this school year with the amalgamation of the Mine Centre District School Area Board and the local one.
Previously, Mine Centre was considered a “school authority,” like dozens of other geographically-isolated smaller communities across the province.
The Ministry of Education had announced the amalgamation back in June.
“It did come as a surprise to us, about the amalgamation, but now things have settled down,” said Mine Centre School principal Brenda Ferris-Hyatt.
“It’s going to take time to transition in order to get up to speed with the RRDSB,” she admitted. “On the other hand, it is an exciting time, not only for the staff at our school, but also the members of the RRDSB to be involved in this venture, and that I think in the long run, it’s going to be a good thing for the students of Mine Centre School.”
“We’ve worked very closely with Mine Centre and Mine Centre senior administration,” noted RRDSB Education Director Jack McMaster. “We tried to get some preliminary information ahead of time.
“We didn’t really take over until Sept. 1, and so last week we went out and met with staff and [Ferris-Hyatt] and talked about the types of things that would be of concern for them, tried to alleviate their concerns, and we’ll continue to work with them.
“This won’t be an overnight transition, it could take quite a bit of time because there are a number of things we have to look at,” McMaster added, including human resources policies such as payroll and benefits, and contract negotiations.
“All those things will have to be looked at over time and they get sorted out as we progress through negotiations,” he said.
“Basically it’s getting us up to speed with the RRDSB, and the way that the RRDSB does business,” echoed Ferris-Hyatt.
As a provincially-funded school, the same curriculum is followed but certain things, like policies and resources, can be different and will need to be adjusted to, she remarked.
“With it being our own school board, we didn’t have access to a lot of support from an administration standpoint, like literacy co-ordinators or math co-ordinators,” she noted. “So we’ll have that support. We will also benefit from various resources that they may have, as well.”
As for the students, Ferris-Hyatt doesn’t see big changes for them at this point in time.
About 90 percent of students at Mine Centre School are aboriginal, she said, mostly coming from Seine River and Nicickousemenecaning First Nations.
“We have a full-time native language teacher, and we also have a native language cultural co-ordinator from Nicickousemenecaning, as well. So we’re able to incorporate the language into the classroom, and do many cultural activities,” Ferris-Hyatt noted.
“We often have assemblies with an aboriginal component to it, and we have an annual pow-wow that’s usually held in the spring, and our students are involved with different cultural activities,” she added. “Last year we had some of the students go out to the Manitou Mounds and we’re hoping that that will be an annual event.
“Nicickousemenecaning, they have a language camp and our students in Grade 7 and 8, they attend, and we’re hoping that we’ll be able to get more students out to that.”
McMaster sees this strong cultural program as something the RRDSB can learn from, making the amalgamation of mutual benefit.
“There is a cultural support person at Mine Centre, supported by the [First Nation] bands, and we will sit down with that person and look at the things that they’re offering and talk to them about the kinds of things that we’re offering within our board and look for best practices,” he said.
“They’ll take on things that they see of value, and we’ll take on things for the rest of our board that we see of value.
“We need to recognize that any amalgamation takes time, and that both parties need to sit down and iron out the best of the best,” added McMaster. “And we’ll continue to support Mine Centre just as they’ll be supporting us.”
