More policies reviewed by Horizon Board of Trustees

By Cole Parkinson

Vauxhall Advance

As the Horizon School Board of Trustees continues to review policies, members still have quite a few to go before the end of the school year. During the board’s regular meeting on Nov. 28, the board saw six policies brought forward for review and seven policies that required second and third readings.

The first policy for review was GCAD – School Principals which states “the Board of Trustees of Horizon School Division shall appoint or designate a teacher to be principal for each school and act as the instructional and administrative leader for that school.”

“The updated policy makes reference to the LQS (Leadership Quality Standard) requirements. That would not have been in place in the previous version as that legislation and those standards didn’t exist. I also removed reference to contract as that is already in Policy GCNN and also references to collective agreements — that is where the main clarity around contracts for principals,” explained Wilco Tymensen, superintendent of schools. “Also in the policy, we provide clarity around HR practice for filling vacancies and reference to principal responsibilities as per the Education Act.”

Next up was GCK – Staff Allocation. This policy “delegates the staffing of the school division to the superintendent.”

“This policy is just typically to align with practice from the last number of years. What happens is, Phil (Johansen, associate superintendent of finance and operations) prepares a budget, the board approves the budget, and once it’s approved by the board, it gets submitted to the minister,” added Tymensen.

The third policy reviewed by the board was GCKB – School Staff Meetings which states the board expects schools to hold staff meetings regularly during the school year.

“The key piece here is there is some clarity of expectations. As an example, it mentions the fact that school principals should be communicating with staff in advance of when staff meetings occur. They should also have expectations of what minutes look like so people are aware in case they happen to miss. You may miss a staff meeting for a specific reason, the expectation is if they are scheduled for you, they are mandatory,” explained Tymensen.

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