WEYBURN - The leaders meet every Monday morning to rehash activities and set the priority lists for the week.
This team that leads a total staff of 224 employees then arranges schedules, including vehicle deployment.
They then set out to do their jobs and, as noted by their leader, Andy Dobson, they’re “keeping it positive.”
Dobson was in the Â鶹´«Ã½AV East Cornerstone Public School Division’s (SECPSD) conference room in Weyburn to talk with board members during their Feb. 16 open business session. He brought with him, three supervisors who oversee various sectors in the division’s facilities and transportation program.
Each of the supervisors provided efficient updates on their particular area of concern, beginning with Marlin Maas who oversees the caretaking and safety sectors.
In introducing each of the supervisors, Dobson noted that Maas began his 21-year journey with the school systems as a caretaker before gaining a technician’s role and was then promoted into the current position as supervisor.
He said that operations supervisor Jim Swyryda had been with Cornerstone since its origin as an amalgamated school division, coming over to the public school system from municipal government.
Andy Verhaeghe, Dobson said, has been with SECPSD for six years, and is now supervising the transportation programs for the sprawling school division.
“We share the same values and we try to set positive examples,” said Dobson, pointing out how the team can now carry out a number of projects by using in-house talents since they employ professional carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other associated construction talents.
“We try to do a lot of our work during non-school time, to protect students and schedules and if it’s something we can do and complete on time, then that’s what we’ll do,” Dobson added.
He pointed to a couple of examples as being the completion of projects within the walls of the Estevan Comprehensive School that were carried out without interruption to the school days, and completed on time, in spite of one project being sprung on them with a short timeline.
The resetting of a section formerly occupied by the regional college for work space and office details for the Cyber Stone virtual school service was one project, and the other was the recent refurbishment of another section of the school that was turned into a family resource centre for youngsters, parents and educators.
Most of the work on these projects was done in-house with the exception of one temporary contracted service provider. That led to major financial savings for the school division.
On the caretaking side, Maas noted the services were provided for 35 schools plus division offices and shops.
Keeping the schools open was a big task for the caretaking staffs during the COVID pandemic period as a floating team of caretakers needed to be deployed at various times when regular caretakers had to take time off or went down with the virus, or had to respond to virus mandates.
He also pointed out the safety training regimes and how the personnel needed to be juggled at times.
Maas said safety training documents and reviews were held on schedule and changes made when necessary.
“We generally got our pandemic supplies on time and procured locally. There were questions about masks at one point, but were able to secure them and respond to the safety risks,” Maas said.
Injury rates were lower, but incidents were up, for obvious reasons, the pandemic, he added.
Swyryda, the operations supervisor noted how the renovations went well for the two ECS projects, saving the school division, “a lot.”
He said the ECS elevator was down for repairs for awhile and the Radville School renovation project included the addition of three classrooms to accommodate arriving elementary students, plus an additional washroom, lighting and new flooring for the school.
Swyryda also reported that when the Gladmar School roof was blown off by the mid-January storm in 2021, the roof and brick repairs amounted to $1.76 million, but was covered by insurance and the division’s $5,000 deductible plan.
The roof and other required repairs needed at the recently completed Weyburn Comprehensive School following the storm, amounted to $380,000.
“But the insurers stepped up for a $25,000 deductible,” he reported.
Lighting was also upgraded in 14 schools and the air exchange systems in most of the schools were enhanced in response to the COVID pandemic challenges.
Verhaeghe told board members that each transportation shop had their own binder and a schedule for school buses had been reset to ensure that older buses were used on routes “closer to home base,” while the newer buses were used for the longer routes.
He also reported that repair times had been shortened with efficiencies and that all school buses were now fuelled by gas since the performance and heating systems in the diesel buses had failed to live up to expectations.
After some discussion with board members regarding rising fuel costs, the reports were approved.
Dobson added that two capital projects remained at the top of the priority list.
The projects were a replacement for the pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 school in Carlyle and a major renovation and refurbishment of Estevan Comprehensive School to turn it into a Grade 7-12 facility, among other major refurbishments.
These long-range plans have yet to receive Ministry of Education approval, but Dobson said they will continue to make applications for these two projects on a continuing basis until they do receive a green light at the provincial level.
