Amalgamation seems to be the trend among school divisions in and around the Weyburn area this year.

As of January 1, 2004, seven school divisions in the area will become three; the Weyburn School Division will amalgamate with Prairie View School Division to become Sunrise School Division No. 145.

St. Olivier School in Radville will join the Weyburn Roman Catholic Separate School Division (R.C.S.S.D.) and the Estevan R.C.S.S.D. to become Holy Family R.C.S.S.D. No. 140.

Lastly, Radville School Division has been collaborating amalgamation efforts over the last several months with Weyburn Central School Division. They will become the South Central School Division No. 141 on the first of the new year.

The amalgamations will involve 23 schools and over 3,000 students who will not notice a major difference, as the changes are "mostly on an administrative level," according to Walt Morris, director of Weyburn Central and Separate divisions. "Kids won't find any difference other than the fact that their school buses will have different names on them," he said.

While amalgamation is "exciting" for these school divisions, it is nothing new in Saskatchewan or across the country.

Prince Edward Island reduced its five school boards to three in 1994 and other provinces followed suit. Alberta went from 146 school boards to 66 in 1996 and Quebec made 156 school boards into 72 in 1997.

As a result of a government initiative in 2001, Manitoba reduced 129 boards to 72, effective July 2002. In fact, all provinces have made significant reductions in numbers of school boards over the last decade.

In Saskatchewan, there were 119 school boards in 1996 and 99 as of 2001. The provincial government began evaluating the structure of the education system in light of continuous enrolment decline.

"What has happened across Saskatchewan is we've lost student population but we didn't restructure our school divisions," said Tom Chell, a regional director with Saskatchewan Learning. "In order to create some sort of administrative efficiency, you bring these school divisions together," he added.

Noting the role of the school has changed, Chell said larger divisions are better able to provide the kinds of services the public demands for its students.

School divisions have to work together to deal with depopulation because the only alternative is to find more money, he noted. "You have to look at ways of doing the same kinds of things or more with fewer dollars," Chell said, adding people "don't want to pay anymore taxes."

The provincial government provides additional finances to school boards for amalgamating and will have handed out over $3.5 million by the end of 2004.

The Weyburn Public and Prairie View boards, as with other boards amalgamating, have joint meetings and have developed committees to work on issues together.

Prairie View board members "will be playing a very strong part, an equal part with the Weyburn Public (board) in all of the committee work," said Georgia Joorisity, director of that division. Principals and administrators are involved in the process too, she said.

The next few months will be transitional for the all of the boards and their office staff. "Following that, there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of contracts and agreements and policy," according to Jan Chell, director of Weyburn Public, but it won't be wrapped up quickly, she noted.

"Looking at other school divisions that have done this, it can take years just to actually finish, they are huge jobs," Chell said.

Morris noted at a recent board meeting for South Central that policy should not be easy to change, adding such decisions are time-consuming.

While amalgamation largely means changes in the office, "we are going to be able to achieve some significant economies," Morris pointed out. "As a result of that, we will be able to put more money back into the classrooms, which is really where we want to put it."