The issue of the use of bus safety arms within a city came up at the Holy Family Roman Catholic School Division's inaugural meeting on Wednesday night, and the board found much of their business had to do with issues relating to the amalgamation of the three former Separate school boards into one large unit.

Holy Family is the newly amalgamated school division made up of Weyburn and Estevan Roman Catholic School boards, and St. Olivier School board of Radville.

The board received notice from the City of Estevan that their council has now approved the use of bus safety arms within the city boundaries. Weyburn's former Public School board has been trying for the last couple of years to raise this issue, and were recently successful in getting the support of the province's school trustees. The matter has now gone on to the provincial government to implement province-wide regulations about the use of bus safety arms and lights in both urban and rural areas.

"Why would we deal with this when it's going to be dealt with by the government?," asked trustee John Nikolejsin, noting the provincial trustees supported Weyburn's resolution by 80 per cent.

The Holy Family board decided to table the request for support for more information, as it was unclear if Estevan was leaving the matter as optional or mandatory, and whether only stop arms or lights were to be used.

"If one school division does it one way and the other doesn't, it will confuse the public and endanger the students," said Nikolejsin.

Education director Walt Morris said this letter was the first notice from Estevan that they were even considering this issue.

Earlier in the meeting, the trustees elected Vince Marcotte of Estevan as the board chair, and Janet Galarneau of Radville as vice-chair.

The chair and vice-chair will take time in the coming weeks to assign trustees to the various committees, and named the trustees for the Weyburn and Estevan Comp boards and the management committee with the South Central School Division. Trustees Bruno Tuchscherer and Jerome Sidloski, both of Weyburn, were named to the Weyburn Comp board, with Karen Melle of Estevan as the alternate.

On the management committee, Morris noted Holy Family gets three members and South Central gets two; trustees Marcotte, Galarneau and Nikolejsin were named for Holy Family.

As all three former boards had different indemnity rates for the trustees, the new board decided to set one rate for Holy Family. The trustees will be paid $70 for a meeting in their community and $100 if the meeting is out of community; $50 for attending committee meetings; and $100 per diem for attending conferences, such as provincial conventions. They will also go by government rates for travel and meal allowances.

Board meetings will be held the second Wednesday of every month, and the meetings will circulate amongst the three member communities of Weyburn, Radville and Estevan.

Among the issues to be dealt with as part of the amalgamation process will be working out the new school division's policy manual. Morris asked the board to pass the new policy manual, which was put together after the administrators went through the manuals from the three previous school districts; he said the provincial act requires policies to be in place, and that the board can make changes to the policies at any time afterwards.

The new board also has to straighten out its insurance coverage, which was different for each of the new boards.

Dealing with each of the two cities and the town as local tax authorities will also be a challenge, said Morris, noting each community has different tax policies, and has differences in how they remit the tax funds to the school board.

Morris said he will set up meetings with the administrators of Weyburn, Estevan and Radville, followed by meetings with the elected officials.

The next board meeting for Holy Family will be Wednesday, Feb. 11, in Estevan.