Capital spending plans, school trips make for highlights of June School Board meeting

SD52 held their final Board meeting for the current school year last week

Trustees for School District 52 gathered for their last meeting of the current school year last week,  with reports on a number of recent school trips, as well as the capital spending plans ahead among some of the items up for review.

When it comes to the long term view, the Board of Education approved the 2020-2021 Capital at their June 11th meeting, with the highest priority for the School District remaining the replacement of Prince Rupert Middle School, until the province and SD52 can make that long awaited announcement the school will work towards its seismic project for the 9th Avenue West school.

Other Capital projects for the year ahead include replacement planning for Conrad Street Elementary School and the District Support Services Building.

The District will also work on a Carbon Neutral Program project to upgrade lighting at schools and facilities.

Included on the list of Other School Enhancement projects are the following:

District playground fall protection work, District Paving, Sidewalk and Outdoor Stair Repair, Washroom and Plumbing Upgrades, Partial roof recovering of the Booth building, District Security System upgrades, completion of an All-Weather Field for Pineridge school, work on the envelope of the Operations Building and DDC upgrades for Roosevelt School.

Lax Kxeen school will also see a playground equipment project put in place.

District officials also heard some details of a pair of recent trips that some of the District's students and staff members took.  The first an update on the student visit to the #BCTECHSummit and UBC in March, where students attended the Youth Innovation Summit. Chairman James Horne took note of how the trip provided some valuable insight into the technology opportunities in the province.

"It was encouraging to hear how this trip helped our students to better  understand the work opportunities available to them in the technology sector of our Province"

Students of the Band program as Prince Rupert Middle School were also on the road this Spring and at the June 11th meeting the trustees heard from a number of students about the many opportunities that they were able to explore while in Edmonton to take in the Music Festival in that city.

"The Board of Education could clearly see that the students had a lot of fun on this band trip, our thanks to out to the staff, chaperones and donors who made this trip possible"

The School District's Strategic Plan Review for 2017-2021 was the focus for Superintendent Irene LaPierre, she outlined how the District results are measured primarily in the Aboriginal Education Partnership Agreement Annual Report and in the data collection and analysis of the Framework for Enhanced Student Learning.

You can find more on the School District's plan here.

The Board also received the results of the Carbon Neutral Action Report for 2018, with recent additions to the technology at school facilities providing for a noticeable decrease in the carbon offsets that are required by the District. Results over the last two years found that 827 tonnes were offest in 2017 with 660 tonnes the offset recorded for 2018.

Past results from the Carbon Neutral Action initiative can be explored here.

The District will be hosting their Sphero Olympics on Tuesday June 18th starting a 1 PM at École Roosevelt Park Community School, Students from all of the Prince Rupert schools will be taking part in the competition.

While the schools close for the summer on June 27th, the School District will once again be hosting a Summer Read and Play program, two schools, Conrad Street and École Roosevelt Park set to host the program from July 15 to August 2nd. The Summer Rad and Play program is designed for students entering Grade 3 and school staff will be issuing the invitations for the students to participate with it.

You can review the School District's notes on their June 11th session here, they next meet for official duties in September.

For more items of note related to education on the North Coast see our archive page here.