LAKELAND - The Lakeland Catholic School Division is on track to meet its budget projections as the division prepares to welcome students back for the 2021-22 school year.
Trustees heard on Aug. 18 that the division is wrapping up capital projects at a couple schools. Extended parking lots at École Notre Dame High in Bonnyville should be completed by the end of September, while major interior upgrades to École Dr. Bernard Brosseau Middle School in Bonnyville were expected to wrap up by the end of last week.
“We redid some of the flooring in that school, and repainted and upgraded inside that school,” said Tessa Hetu, the division's secretary treasurer. “It'll be fresh for the new school year.”
As for the division's operating budget, trustees heard the division recorded a $286,000 surplus for July. For the entire year to date, the division is in a slight deficit – but expenses for July and August are usually lower than for the rest of the year, since they don't carry the staffing, busing and supply costs of the months where school is in session. If August results in a surplus similar to last August's $450,000 surplus, the overall deficit will disappear and the division will be very close to its spring budget projections.
“We are on target to be right where we budgeted for, so that's great,” Hetu said.
Connecting with parents
With a new website going live imminently, trustees will be trying something new by adding video messages to their methods of communicating with families in the division.
That will be tested with a welcome back video as school begins, though the idea was floated that they switch to video for their monthly Trustee Corner messages as well.
Board vice-chairperson Margaret Borders noted the Trustee Corner is nameless so there wasn't an imbalance in which trustees were connecting with their ward and which ones weren't.
Cold Lake trustee Vicky Lefebvre said she likes the idea of having a video once new trustees are elected, and said the division could test the waters with a welcome back video.
“You want your stakeholders and families to see who you are and how to contact you,” she said.
Celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day
Following a busy June that saw graduations, track and field events and celebrations for National Indigenous Peoples Day, superintendent Pamela Guilbault told trustees the division has heard feedback that the work it's doing to educate students about Indigenous history is paying off.
Guilbault said when the division went back to its Indigenous education committee, they heard students had talked about understanding how their friends were part of this history long before they were, or how making a dream catcher showed Indigenous culture has a history rooted in the land.
“All of these things created an understanding that meant more than just one day,” she said. “That was just such an eye-opener, and so gratifying for our Indigenous education committee and for all the teachers that have been working so hard.”
