Staff
Fort Frances may lose one of its three seats on the Northwest Catholic District School Board after a vote tonight on trustee determination and distribution for the upcoming election.
While the board was granted an additional trustee by the Ministry of Education following the amalgamation of the Atikokan Roman Catholic Separate School Board, the recommendation before the board on how the total eight seats be divvied up has two seats each designated for Fort Frances, Dryden, and Sioux Lookout, and one each for Atikokan and Stratton (which includes the townships surrounding Stratton).
The current distribution has three trustees representing Fort Frances, two representing Dryden, and one each for Sioux Lookout and Stratton.
Trustee determination and distributions are calculated as per regulations from the Ontario government.
Under this calculation, there also is a distribution option that would see three seats remain in Fort Frances (which also includes Alberton, La Vallee and the surrounding unorganized territories).
But this calculation also would leave Our Lady of the Way School in Stratton, and its surrounding municipalities, without a trustee.
Excluding Atikokan, the board’s jurisdiction also saw a decline by 653 electors (13 percent) since 2006—of which roughly half are from Fort Frances and its surrounding area.
A ninth trustee position is filled by local First Nations.
Also before the board at tonight’s regular monthly meeting is a recommendation it use $170,000 in reserve funding to “support an increase of literacy coach time in all area schools.
The board currently has a full-time equivalent of 2.5 teachers working as literacy coaches across the district.
This funding would cover the salary and benefits needed to increase the number of hours these literacy coaches will be working at the schools.
Meanwhile, two “Recognition of Excellences” also will presented tonight.
The first is going to St. Frances School’s Student Spirit Day organizers and the second to St. Michael’s School staff for their “Popping for Peace” project.
Tonight’s meeting will be held via videoconference at the St. Francis School library starting at 6:30 p.m.
