Around 30 parents attended the Weyburn Roman Catholic Separate School division electors meeting on April 4 to hear the division may relocate kindergarten to St. Dominic Savio School.

The kindergarten was moved to St. Michael Junior High School 14 years ago because of a lack of space at St. Dominic. But with recent renovations to St. Dominic, more classroom and resource space has been created and allowed for the kindergarten class to return to its former room in the school.

During a question and answer session, a parent who supports the proposed move asked director of education Al Boutin what was stopping the division from making it happen.

Boutin told parents there were several options to consider, from moving the kindergarten class to St. Dominic Savio, to moving the Grade 6 class to St. Michael School, or to have two schools which included kindergarten to Grade 9 classes.

Curriculum and instruction superintendent Liam Choo Foo added the Saskatchewan Department of Education now considers Grade 6 as part of grades 7 to 9 or middle years curriculum, something which was not done several years ago.

Unlike the original move which was opposed by the electors earlier in the year, a move back to St. Dominic Savio had support from parents at the meeting.

School enrollments throughout the division are down slightly from 433 students to 426. There was also a small decrease in teaching full-time equivalent positions, from 24.19 to 24.

The Weyburn Roman Catholic Separate School Division ended the previous year with a $198,253 surplus. The biggest expenditures were the renovations to St. Dominic Savio School and a new boiler at St. Michael School. The total amount spent on renovations was $359,284.

Board chairman John Nikolejsin noted in his report that over the course of this year, the division expanded its shared services agreement with the Weyburn Central School Division and the Estevan Roman Catholic Separate School Division, to include the St. Olivier Roman Catholic Separate School Division and the Radville School Division. As a result, there is now only one director of education and two superintendents for all five divisions. Each board maintains its own secretary treasurer.

As of November 1999, the three separate school boards started holding joint board meetings, while rotating the meeting location among the three divisions.

One major activity the three boards are jointly hosting is the provincial convention for Catholic school trustees in November, 2000.