Bluewater District School Board trustees have no appetite to cut their numbers in this fall’s election.
Provincial legislation allows the board to have as few as five trustees instead of the current nine plus two First Nation representatives.
The suggestion got no takers at the March 2 policy meeting.
The public made it clear over the past year it wants more accessibility, said chair Jennifer Yenssen, and cutting trustees is not the way to achieve that.
“Generally members of our communities and our parents feel that trustees are not that accessible and I feel that’s partly because of the huge area that each of us (already) represent,” Yenssen said.
“I think it follows if there were fewer of us, it would be even harder to reach a trustee and have access to a trustee.”
Bruce and Grey took a big reduction in school trustee numbers in 1997 when amalgamation slashed trustee numbers from 27 to nine.
Declining enrolment is not a reason to cut board members, said trustee Tim Reaburn.
“We’re elected on population, not enrolment. The population of Grey and Bruce is up,” he said, quoting latest census figures.


School repairs

The board is gearing up for summer work on its schools.
Bluewater has $1.6 million from the province to tackle repairs and upgrades needed for new programs.
But with a backlog of work to do, allocating the funds means doing a balancing act between principals’ wish lists and Ministry directives.
“We also review the high and urgent renewal items on the ministry list and try to do a balance between principal requests, program needs and facility requirements, and prioritize that against the available funding we have,” said plant manager Al Gibb.
The nearly two dozen projects slated for this year were chosen after consultation with principals and staff, and input from trustees.
“Would we want more? Certainly we would want more,” Gibb said about his squeezed budget.
“However the Ministry has supplemented with priority funding through special programs.”
Green technology is used where possible, but Gibb said working with existing buildings makes that a challenge.
“Green projects are more directed to new builds,” he said. “However with boilers and window replacements we are using double-glazed argon-filled (windows); high efficiency boilers – those are a primary consideration with any replacement work.”

Accommodation review

The community will get more information and access to alternatives the next time Bluewater district school board does an accommodation review.
A policy revision now underway includes changes from the province. It also includes recommendations developed by the Walkerton accommodation review committee during the course of a controversial review of Brant Central, Walkerton Public and Walkerton District Secondary schools.
“Some of the suggestions for changes to our accommodation review policy were based on feedback that we received from the reviews conducted in 2007-2008,” said chair Yenssen.
The Walkerton accommodation review ended with plans for a combined school to replace two public schools and Walkerton District.
There were no school reviews in the 2009-10 school year, but Bluewater trustees are waiting for a staff report on current accommodation review triggers to see if there will be any schools eligible for review this year.
Odds are against any accommodation reviews this year, Yenssen said.
“I think it’s reasonable to assume that we wouldn’t be doing one in the midst of a municipal election,” she said.