Southwest School Board Structure to Stay

Some changes are on the way for the Southwest Regional School Board, but the structure is here to stay. Education Minister Jane Purves made the announcement today in response to the Report of the Southwest School Board Evaluation team.

"The report has confirmed that the structure works, and it's also given us concrete suggestions for improvement," said Ms. Purves.

The evaluation team submitted its report earlier this year after public consultations and meetings with the district and regional school boards. The report recommended, among other things, that:

• roles and responsibilities between the district and the region be clarified;
• the Department of Education provide more effective support and monitoring;
• communications and regional and joint planning be improved;
• an acceptable level of services be delivered cost-effectively.

"A decline in enrolment in the Southwest and across the province requires us to consider alternative ways to cost-effectively deliver educational and non-educational services to students," said Ms. Purves. "We believe this new approach can continue to work -- and to work much better -- once the issues identified by the evaluation team and the boards are dealt with."

A committee chaired by the department and including the CEO and board directors of education, will oversee the changes. It will also support better planning, communications and monitoring by the department and lead the effort to clarify roles and responsibilities for the districts, regional board and department. The department will also share in the cost of a review of busing that includes service levels in the Southwest.

Other recommendations in the report are relevant provincewide. For example, one recommendation is to link the improvement plans of school advisory councils and boards with each board's long- range goals. The department will soon launch a new pilot project that will address this recommendation.

Ms. Purves applauded the efforts of the district boards and of staff at the district and regional boards. They are leading the province in a new approach to school board governance.

"These people have made a positive contribution throughout the pilot," she said. "The commitment we've seen to date should assure students and taxpayers that the goals of better education and protection of financial resources are being achieved in the Southwest."

The success of the Southwest pilot could lead to an approach that would benefit other school boards in the future, but Ms. Purves made a commitment to consult with boards before widespread changes are made.

She added that the department's response to the Southwest Evaluation Team Report is being considered within the context of recent school board events and the recommendations of other reports on school board accountability.

In the spring of 2000, a pilot project created two smaller district boards in the Southwest Regional School Board: Tri- County and South Shore. The district board members focused solely on classroom and education issues. An administrative structure was formed to provide financial, busing, building and other non- classroom services to both districts. The administrative structure is headed by a chief executive officer, who reports directly to the deputy minister of Education.

A copy of the department's response to the evaluation is available on the department's web site at www.ednet.ns.ca .