Living Sky School Division's Board Chair Ronna Pethick, left centre, and Director of Education Brenda Vickers, right centre, discuss some of the division’s plans for the year ahead. (file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Eye on education

Living Sky focuses on Cut Knife merger, mental health initiative

Sep 6, 2019 | 12:52 PM

Living Sky School Division is starting the new school year with a number of projects on the go.

One significant initiative on the agenda is the opening of the newly amalgamated Cut Knife school this year. It is also planning a mental health presentation for all staff in the division. Living Sky is also working on a new strategic plan to help guide its decision-making.

For Cut Knife, the community is starting the 2019-2020 school year with one central facility called Cut Knife Community School, since the elementary school and high school amalgamated due to reduced enrolment. The pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 classes are now all held in the former high school building. The decision to merge the two schools was made by the School Community Council (SCC) of Cut Knife.

Living Sky Board Chair Ronna Pethick said the division completed a great deal of work to the building to accommodate the smaller children attending the new school.

Living Sky is also seeing reduced enrolment in Spiritwood so it may be merging the elementary and secondary schools in this community as well sometime in the future, although nothing has been planned yet.

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“We are beginning to have discussions with Spiritwood,” Pethick said. “No decisions have been made.”

Similar to Cut Knife, if the division’s two schools in Spiritwood were to merge, the Spiritwood School Community Council would need to make that decision first.

While Living Sky’s current overall enrolment numbers are not available yet, the division projected a slightly reduced enrolment overall for 2019-20.

Numbers can be dependent on a number of factors, including changes to the economy as well as birth rate patterns.

Fluctuations in the oil and gas industry is one factor that can impact school division numbers, since families move to the area when there are more jobs, and leave when there are fewer, Pethick said.

“Some of our schools are at the mercy of the oil and gas industry, so we are seeing a decrease in some of our schools that are in those areas,” Pethick said.

There has been a trend in general of families having fewer children which also ultimately affects enrolment for many school divisions.

“That’s a reality that we face in rural Saskatchewan,” Pethick said.

Mental health continues to be a priority not only for students but also staff, according to the division.

As a result, Living Sky will host professional development sessions for all staff in the division to promote mental health. Guest speakers child psychologist Dr. Jody Carrington and University of Alberta associate professor Sean Lessard will give presentations to staff on the topic.

“We want to [ensure] the people that are looking after our children are also looked after – both mentally and psychologically,” Pethick said.

Pethick said Carrington’s message is particularly important, that staff “have to be healthy in order to help our children, because our children come with so many different needs, and so many different areas that they need help in. So that is a focus.”

The school division is also developing its new five-year strategic plan this year. It will seek input from everyone to develop the new plan, including staff, school community councils, stakeholders and the public. It hopes to complete the project for the following school year.

The division will ask people what it does well and what they would like to see changed.

“We will take the entire year to make sure we have met with everyone and we’ll sit down and develop our new strategic plan moving probably five-years forward,” Director of Education Brenda Vickers said. “I’m excited about that. We’re going to take the time it takes to make sure we have read every comment to make sure we have been thorough with the process.”

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow