Local schools expecting more students this fall

August 30, 2016, 2:06 am
Kristen Weedmark

Schools in the Southeast Cornerstone School Division are opening their doors for the school year this Thursday, September 1, while schools in Fort La Bosse in Manitoba will be opening next week.

Both Tammy Cole, principal of MacLeod Elementary and Jeff St. Onge, principal of McNaughton High in Moosomin, say that there are many new students this year.

“There are lots,” said St. Onge. “They’re just rolling in. I’ve got transcipts here from other kids, but until they show up in the fall it’s just a maybe. Last year we had over 30 new students, but I’m not expecting that many this year, I’d probably say about 10 to 15.”

“There are definitely a few new students,” said Cole. “I’m not sure exactly how many there will be. So far I’d say we have at least 10 that are new. School hasn’t started yet, but we’re definitely seeing lots of new students coming.”

St. Onge and Cole both say that they are looking forward to the first day of school.

“I always do,” said St. Onge. “The floors are shining, the rooms are clean, the kids are happy, and so are the staff. The first day’s always a lot of fun.”

“I’m the new principal,” said Cole. “I’m very much looking forward to the first day of school.”

Work is now being done to prepare for the first day of school.

“Everyone’s been busy in their classrooms,” said Cole. “Putting up great new bulletin boards and getting lesson plans and things ready for the first couple of days of school. Lots of staff members have been in designing the classrooms and just preparing and getting things ready.”

“It’s not the work that you’re doing now to get ready for the fall,” said St. Onge. “That all happened in June. Things don’t really wind down in June, they ramp right up. You get ready to close out the current year but you’re doing all your preliminary work to get your new year going. We will have done all of that in June, then we’re in for a couple of days this week, and we have an admin meeting on Thursday, then we’ll be back here on Friday to get ready for the Monday when the staff come in, then we’ll do professional development, there’s a teacher’s convention, and then we’ll do all the nuts and bolts to get everything in place for the first day when the kids show up.

“Then at the start of the year there are awards and a welcome back barbecue, and that stuff’s all in place already. The food is here and the awards are all laid out and ready to go. So all of that preliminary work is done so that we do have a successful start.”

“The welcome back barbecue is on Friday the second at noon, and on Friday at 2 are the grade 10 and 11 awards. The grade 12 awards are on Wednesday, August 31 at 6.”

MacLeod Elementary is having a welcome back barbecue on Wednesday, August 31. “The School Community Council is hosting a back to school barbecue on Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30. Students can come out and meet their teachers and meet their other classmates, so it’s just an event to kick things off, and then school starts the next day.”

Cole says that MacLeod Elementary is going to be making some changes to the student leadership team.

“We’re going to be adding some new groups to our intramural program and that came from the students’ input from what we call the Tell Them From Me survey that they did in June.”

Grade added at Wapella
Principal of Wapella School, Wendy Johnson, says that there are some changes to the school this year.

“We have a new bell schedule, so there is a little bit of a change during the day for our new bell system. We have some staff changes as well.”

This year, Wapella will be offering grade 7 to students in the community while last year it only offered kindergarten to grade 6.

“We’ll offer more subjects because of that,” said Johnson. “We had a little bit of an increase with staffing and we just added another middle years grade onto our grade sixes. It’s not really going to be a big change at all.”

“I’ve heard of a few new students this fall,” said Johnson. “No body has come to register, but they don’t usually register until the first day anyway.”

Johnson says that there is a lot of work going on to prepare for the first day of school.

“Teachers are in their classrooms, we’re getting ready for our first meeting, convention is on Monday. People are moving things around and doing bulletin boards, planning their units, and all kinds of stuff. There’s tonnes of stuff happening. All the staff have been in and out for the last two weeks.”

“We’re having a welcome back barbecue on September 2. SCC is hosting that and it was funded by the Fun Days Committee. Then we have our AGM at the end of September and open house is on September 28.”

“We’re all excited and looking forward to getting back to work with the students,” said Johnson.

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