New Governance Model Effective Aug. 1

After months of consultation with staff from the Department of Education, the Strait, Tri-County and the South Shore District school boards are only days away from the long-awaited move to regional status.

"We thank the three board chairs and their staff for all of their hard work over the year as they worked with the department to plan a smooth transition from their district to regional status," said Economic Development Minister Ernest Fage on behalf of Education Minister Jamie Muir. "We have every confidence that students will benefit from a quality education under the new regional boards, which is the priority for all of us."

Effective Aug. 1, the Strait, Tri-County and the South Shore district boards will complete the move to regional status. The pilot Strait regional board and the pilot Southwest regional board will be dissolved.

All three pilot school boards asked to revert to regional board status. The new regional boards will have all the authorities and responsibilities of regional boards elsewhere in the province.

The South Shore and Tri-County boards will share financial services, human resources services and information technology. Staff providing shared services will be employed by one or the other of the two school boards. Other staff will become employees of the regional board where they are located.

All benefits, pay rates and collective agreements will remain the same.

A management committee consisting of the chair and superintendent of each board will manage and lead the shared services arrangement in accordance with a service agreement and regulations.

The appointments of the chief executive officer and the director of education in the pilot Southwest and Strait Regional School will be revoked effective July 31. The new regional school boards will announce the new superintendents as soon as possible after Aug. 1.

The new board structure was announced in April 2004 after Cabinet approved the recommendation to move the district boards to regional status in time for the fall 2004 school board elections.

In 2000, the former Southwest Regional School Board was split into two district boards: the Tri-County and South Shore pilot district educational boards. These district boards shared a regional service provider, which was responsible for managing facilities, transportation, human resources and providing financial services support.

The pilot structure was extended to the Strait in 2002.