Budget looks positive for start of new year

St. Paul Education Board of Trustees

Student enrolment numbers are looking stable for the start of a new school year and some unexpected donations, grants and reimbursements were graciously received at our first official Board Meeting of the year.

On Wednesday, September 9, the Board started off the day with its Organizational Meeting where Trustee Starosielski was re-elected as Chair and and Trustee Pederson was elected as Vice-Chair. I was honoured to serve as Vice-Chair the past two years, but I felt it was time to let others serve in this role and I believe Trustee Pederson will do an excellent job. Trustees also selected their respective committees and set their remuneration for the year.

The Regular Board Meeting began with two gracious donations: one, from the St. Paul Legion towards our schools' breakfast programs; and two, from The Spur radio station for our division music programs. The St. Paul and District Co-op has already kicked off its school breakfasts across the division to launch the Bags for Breakfast program; again, with proceeds from re-used grocery bags going towards our division school breakfast program. All of our schools within the division provide free breakfasts for our students so that they are well-fed and ready to learn for the day.

St. Paul and District Co-op staff serving up breakfast at our schools.

The Co-op has been serving pancakes, fruit, milk and juice to students at all of our schools this past week to kick off the Bags for Breakfast program where three cents from each re-usable bag used at their stores will be donated back to St. Paul Education school breakfast programs. The remaining schedule for next week is as follows:

September 19 - Two Hills Schools

September 20 - Racette and St. Paul Elementary Schools

September 21 - Glen Avon, Regional High School and SPAEC

St. Paul Education was also one of 11 districts to be selected for a School Nutrition Pilot Project for K-6 schools announced by the Government of Alberta last month. Ashmont Elementary has been selected to receive $250,000 towards developing a nutrition program. 

Trustees were also pleasantly surprised to learn the division is eligible to receive $341,047 as part of the final distribution of the Alberta Local Authorities Reciprocal Insurance Exchange assets. ALARIE ceased operations in 2002, but final distributions required the settling of all outstanding claims and it has now been completed. This goes to show that our division budget fluctuates throughout the year, and even though we approve at budget in the spring, it is a constant target. 

All of the highlights from our Regular Board Meetings can be found on our division website at: www.stpauleducation.ab.ca/board-meetings.