By Greg Nikkel
The board of trustees for Southeast Cornerstone School Division voted unanimously on Thursday to include Souris School with Haig and Queen Elizabeth schools, and will close the school once the new elementary school is built and ready to open.
The new school is slated to be built on the site of the former Weyburn Junior High on Fifth Street once that school has been demolished, with one trustee noting it could take three years before the new school will be opened. Once the elementary students are located in the new school, all three current elementary schools will close, leaving only Assiniboia Park as a stand-alone elementary school.
The Weyburn Junior High was closed with the Grades 7-9 moved over to the Weyburn Comprehensive School, and this was the first full school year where the Comp was a Grades 7-12 school.
“The issues around a school closure are never easy,” said Weyburn trustee Warren Betker. “When we were given the go-ahead on a possible new elementary school, we started to look at Souris and whether they should be a part of that. We went to the school-community council and other parent groups.”
Education director Lynn Little said there were presentations made to the council, and again to another group of parents from Souris with votes taken as to whether they would support having their children attend a new larger elementary school.
The presentation included the history of education in Weyburn, and also looked at the options of what will be offered in the new school, which will be a pre-kindergarten to Grade 6 school with a day care, with the proposal that in partnership with the City of Weyburn to have a fieldhouse facility attached.
There was information about some similar school-sports facility buildings that have been built in recent years around the province, as well as information about the current state of Souris, including the fact the school will not be getting any more capital upgrades as there are many other school projects in more need ahead of Souris in the province.
In a vote held with the parents, 48 per cent said they would prefer to go to the new school, 38 per cent wanted to stay where they were, and 14 per cent were okay with whatever direction the school board chose.
“Of the people who attended the parents night, 65 per cent selected the idea to have a part in this new facility,” said Little, referring to a later information meeting led by Keith Keating from the school board office.
One trustee noted that new schools paid for by the province don’t come along very often, and that since Souris is over 100 years old with money for remodeling not readily available, this might be the right time to have it close once the new school is constructed, estimating this will be a minimum of three years from now.
Weyburn’s other trustee, Melanie Sorensen, noted she attended both information meetings with the parents, and said she feels “this is the right thing to do, not only for the families in Souris School but for the community of Weyburn.”
“This is never easy to decide. Melanie has a personal attachment to the school, but she’s looking at the bigger picture,” said trustee Carol Flynn.
Sorensen commented that the presentations were very informative, and “made it more obvious what the right choice was.”
Board chair Audrey Trombley agreed, noting the new school will be state-of-the-art where there will be more options for learning.
With the unanimous vote of the board of trustees, Little said this decision will be communicated with the staff and school-community council, and with all of the parents of Souris School.
In other board business, the trustees were informed that superintendent Kelly Hilkewich will be retiring from his position at the end of June, ending his career in Weyburn that began when he arrived here in 1990. During his career, he served as principal at Assiniboia Park and Haig Schools before moving to the school board office as an administrator. He taught for about seven years, including at Ogema School, prior to coming to Weyburn.
The trustees also approved a revised schedule of board indemnity rates, which were lowered in light of the reduced budget to Cornerstone from the Ministry of Education. With the indemnity rates based on how many meetings are attended and mileage, board chair Trombley said the rates paid to the trustees have been reduced by about 10 per cent overall.
An example of the savings is that previously, a trustee was paid for a full day if a meeting was four hours or longer. Instead of being paid for a full day, they will be paid for half a day plus $25 for expenses.
