Staff
With the province last week okaying pilot projects for full-day junior kindergarten programs at two Atikokan schools, the Northwest Catholic District School board will be eyeing how to bring a similar program to the northern region it serves at tonight’s monthly meeting.
“It may not be the same as the pilot with the ministry because we’re not going to be funded for that,” Education Director Mary-Catherine Kelly explained in an interview last week following the provincial government’s announcement of which schools in the province would be the sites of full-day junior kindergarten programs.
Both the local Catholic board and the Rainy River District School board will have their first pilots running Atikokan for the 2009-10 school year, then here in Fort Frances for the 2010-11 year.
But due to the size of the Catholic board, besides overlapping with the public board, it also overlaps with the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board, which will be running one of its pilot JK programs at Pinewood School in Dryden.
“Our plan would be to look at offering it at St. Joseph’s [in Dryden], and then in the second year at Sacred Heart [in Sioux Lookout],” noted Kelly.
“That’s what our tentative plan is at this point in time,” she added.
Also on the agenda for tonight’s meeting, which gets underway at 6:30 p.m. via videoconference in the St. Francis School library, is approval to send a request to the Ministry of Education for an additional trustee to sit on the Catholic board to represent Atikokan.
The request follows the amalgamation of the Atikokan Roman Catholic District School Board with the NCDSB this past fall.
While there currently is no trustee representing Atikokan, former Atikokan RCSSB chair John McInnis has stepped in help advise the board.
As well, the local board will be looking to approve the audited Atikokan Roman Catholic Separate School Board’s financial statements for the 2008-09 school year.
The board also will be looking to approve a recommendation that will approve an additional $50,000 for the 2009-10 budget for funding Critical Learning Instructional Pathway (CLIP).
Funding for CLIP was not included in the original 2009-10 budget as it had been assumed provincial funding from an EPO grant would be announced later.
But while last year the board received $85,000, this year it received only $7,570.
For this month’s recognition of excellence, the board will hear a presentation from St. Francis teachers Colette Fafard, Lisa George, and Sheila Quesnel, along with student council president Ian Kitt and Sam Tibbs.
They will be talking about the various leadership and involvement opportunities the student council has been providing at the school this year.
