A high turnover of teaching staff at the Weyburn Comprehensive School is an early indication of what will be happening in the next decade, says principal Ken Larson, as aging teachers begin to take retirement.

The WCS board of trustees approved most of the hiring of new staff for the fall, with seven new staff joining for the 2000-2001 school year.

"I believe that this is a picture of the next eight to 10 years for our school. Retirements will continue at a steady pace for that period of time. These numbers are not only here, it's all over the province," Larson told the board on Monday evening.

Among the new staff hired for the fall is teacher Jesse Shupe, who is hired both as a new teacher and as a vice-principal to replace Brent Castle, who is leaving for a new position in Manitoba.

Kelley Glaspey was hired to teach social studies, replacing the retiring Bryan Wilson; Leah Birnie has been hired to teach information processing to replace the retiring Darlene Andrusiak; and Stella Hui is hired as a replacement teacher for Loretta Berger, who is taking a one-year leave of absence. Darren Johnson is a full-time temporary teacher, with a contract to the end of January of 2001, for a teacher on maternity leave.

Darlene Martin and Jodi Abel were also hired as full-time teachers, with Abel replacing Colleen Eberts who is transferring to take on the new Alternate High School program.

The Comp will be hosting four interns in the next year as well, including Comp grad Cody Obst, Amanda Ryba, Blair Beck and Mark Reiter.

The Alternate High School may locate in a large room at Elgin Mall, formerly Elgin School, said education director Jan Chell, adding the rental cost would be covered by the Education department.

"We've arranged to see the program in Estevan, where they're developing it, and we'll use a lot of their material to get started. It will evolve to become unique to Weyburn once it's up and running," said Chell.

The board will be hiring a support person for Eberts to act as a teacher aide/counsellor. Letters have been sent to prospective students for the alternative to mainstream high school, including students who have dropped out of the Comp for whatever reason and students in junior high who may be experiencing difficulty in a regular classroom setting.

The Comp board will meet with the Weyburn Performing Arts Centre Society on June 21. The board was told society president Dave Craigen has made an application for funding from the provincial government's centenary grant fund.

As for the $200,000 from Education, which was to be put towards either the performing arts centre or a new band room, Chell said the department has informed them the funding will remain in place for the time being. The board expressed a concern recently that a decision on the use of the money was needed by June.

"The money is still there, not indefinitely, but there's no set date (when it needs to be used). As long as there's the indication the project is being seriously considered, it will be there," said Chell.

Chell noted the application for a centenary grant, a new provincial grant program, was made through the Municipal Government department; a letter received by the Comp board office from Education indicated that as the school has the $200,000 fund available for the centre, no other funds will be coming from the department through programs like the centenary fund.

"Requests for centenary funding are solely for facilities funding, but that's all we'd be expecting for the performing arts centre. It's not deemed as a need for education at this point. You have to demonstrate you need the space very badly, or that your building is dilapidated beyond belief, which isn't the case here," she said.

Students who have left the Comp have been turning in impressive results at post-secondary institutions, according to the results of a survey of former students.

The survey was conducted with Grade 11 and 12 students who have left the Comp; of Grade 11 students, 38 per cent have gone on to attend post-secondary education. Of those, 31 per cent had an average of 80 per cent or lower, and 55 per cent had above-80 averages.

The numbers are better for Grade 12 students, with 57 per cent attending post-secondary institutions, and of those 74 per cent achieving an 80 per cent average or higher.

One interesting fact is the number of females are higher than the number of males going on to post-secondary schooling, said Chell, with 64 per cent of females going on compared to 51 per cent of males.

"There are more women in universities today than men, and that's a drastic change in the last decade," she said.

The Weyburn numbers for types of post-secondary institutions attended by Grade 12 grads are different than the provincial trends, she pointed out.

Provincially, 56 per cent choose university and 38 per cent take schooling in a technical school or college; Weyburn's numbers are the opposite, with a higher percentage attending technical schools than university. Chell attributed this difference to the range of programs that are available at the Comp.

Weyburn-area school boards, including staff from the Comp, attended the tragic events workshop on Wednesday, with just over 100 in attendance, said Chell.

"Part of the outcome of the workshop is a request to develop the crisis management portion of the (tragic events) manual, to deal with things like bomb threats. This will be our job for next year," she said.