Staff
Almost four years of labour peace may be on the horizon as the tentative agreements between the Rainy River District School Board and its regular and occasional elementary teachers are up for ratification at tonight’s board meeting.
Details of the agreements, which already have been ratified by their respective teacher unions, cannot be released until both sides ratify them. But it is known they would apply retroactively from the start of the 2008 school year until 2012.
If approved, elementary teachers would join other board employees, such as secondary school teachers, in having a four-year collective agreement.
Also on the agenda for tonight’s meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. at Atikokan High School, is the new Robert Moore School in Fort Frances.
A motion is being brought forward by the Finance committee to approve the total funding costs of the project ($11,497,014).
A motion to withdraw, from the board’s reserves, $294,000 for the 2009/10 year also is being put forward to go towards “Reinvestment in Student Achievement,” which supports program such as Later Literacy/Oral Language education assistants, professional collaboration sites, critical learning instructional pathways, and the “Student Success” coach.
Following consultation with stakeholders, the board’s policy committee also will be bringing forward motions for the board to approve changes to several policies.
Also tonight, the board will be presented with a preliminary report on the operational review completed by the Ministry of Education from Jan. 26-27, which went over the board’s governance and administration, human resource management and school staffing/allocation, financial management, and school operations and facilities management.
The final report is still being drafted.
For the board’s “Character in Action” program, this month’s characteristic is “perseverance.”
The board will be awarding a recognition of excellence to the North Star Community School for the work students and staff there have been doing to examine this trait.
The board also will hear a presentation on the Specialist High Skills Major—a pilot program launched at Atikokan High School.
