A new action plan was introduced at the joint meeting of local Roman Catholic Separate School Boards on Wednesday, which gives more decision making powers to school principals.

A similar plan was introduced at the Weyburn Central School Division meeting on Jan. 17. The Catholic boards met in Radville for the first time since the boards signed the new shared services agreements.

The plan gives principals and vice-principals the ability to make decisions on day-to day operations in schools. These powers were previously held by the school boards.

"Those who are closest to the situation are best able to find solutions to their individual school's concerns," said director of education Al Boutin. "We will now deal with issues affecting the school division as a whole at the board level."

As a result of the proposed policy change, principals would be encouraged to conduct more consultations within their schools. Vice-principals would also see their administrative roles increase. Under the current system, vice-principals are allotted limited time to do their administrative tasks. The new plan would grant them more time for their administrative duties, but less for teaching.

"It becomes part of the staffing equation," said Boutin. "If we increase administration time, we will have to increase teaching time in most areas."

A technology plan will also be developed which meets the needs of individual schools. Because some schools currently have Apple computers, and others run with IBM-based computers, the plan will differ from school to school.

"We want to focus more on students and educational outcomes rather than hardware," said Boutin. "Technology should be a tool to help meet learning outcomes."

A new staff professional development plan was also introduced, where divisions would use its own teachers experiences as a learning tool.

Teachers with experience in different teaching specializations would be brought in to visit other classrooms to provide guidance and support to other teachers. A substitute teacher would be called in to replace the visiting teacher for the time they were away from their schools.

"Schools have tried to do this before but it did not happen as much as we would like," said Boutin. "We want to facilitate this idea."

Boutin said the school divisions would not likely see savings from this plan, but the extra money spent would reap benefits for the teachers and children because of the new ideas being shared.

More time will also be spent on professional development seminars at the board level, under the action plan.

Boutin gave an example, where board members in the local school divisions with shared services agreements would meet for workshops.

"We could meet to develop a vision for our school divisions," said Boutin. "We would learn what our fundamental views are and how we can achieve our goals."

The separate school divisions have an additional aspect to the action plan, where a commitment is made to enhance their religious faith inside schools.

Boutin proposed that the Catholic faith be promoted in schools by placing more of a focus on prayer and worship, concentrating on religious teachings, creating a catholic community in the school and being of service to the community as a whole.

The Weyburn, St. Olivier and Estevan Roman Catholic Separate School Boards also conducted an evaluation of their director of education at their Wednesday meeting.

"We are more than pleased with the director," said Weyburn Roman Catholic Separate School Board chairman John Nikolejsin. "I think he's got a great vision of where the education system should go."