Horizon School Board meeting briefs – May 30

By Ian Croft

Vauxhall Advance

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

This is a selection of briefs from the May 30 Horizon School Board Meeting.

Interrogation/Search of Students and Seizure of Property

Minor changes were made to this policy, with the most major one being the adding of a definition that states faith based articles are not considered weapons unless used to inflict harm or threaten individuals. Additionally, a guideline was added, stating that any individual who is carrying a faith based article that could be considered a weapon must inform their principal or supervisor.

Student Illness/Injury

Minor changes were also made to this policy with the most major one being the addition of two new guidelines, one being that staff must refer to another policy. If they suspect a student has a concussion, and that internal medicine can only be offered with the written consent of the student’s parents, or in the case of an independent student by the student themselves.

Supervision of Students

This policy was approved once again with only some minor changes were made to it.

Head Lice

This policy was approved once again with only some minor changes were made to it.

2023-24 Budget

This year‘s budget for the Horizon School division has total revenue of $51,564,673, and total expenses of $51,616,056. In comparison, the 2022-23 budget had total revenue of $47,732,515, and total expenses of $48,009,576. Dr. Wilco Tymensen, Superintendent of Horizon School Division, went into detail about why this deficit is not a concern, and how it will be covered by the Alberta government.

“What the government has now done is under the new accounting standards for the province you now have to incorporate future cost and mitigations for hazmats,” said Tymensen. “It was originally designed for things like oil wells, and mines that ultimately at the end when you close the operation, you have to reclaim the land. Rather incurring that payment at the very end of the life of the building, instead you expense that over the lifetime of the item. In the case of schools, schools may have some hazardous material in it and you have to mitigate that when the school reaches the end of life. You’re supposed to put aside a certain amount of money to cover the cost of that, but the difference within the school. When a school gets modernized the province actually provides the dollars for modernization. The school division actually never pays for the hazmat remediation, the province does. The accounting standard says you have to put money aside, and yet you never actually have to incurred the cost, because if the school gets modernized the government covers the cost.”

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