After a brief nomination session among the trustees of Rocky View Schools (RVS), current board chair Bruce Pettigrew maintained his position.
Pettigrew first earned his chairman position after defeating Sylvia Eggerer in a secret vote last October.
This year, Ward 2 trustee Bev LaPeare nominated Pettigrew. Airdrie trustees Don Thomas and Sylvia Eggerer teamed up on the next nomination. Thomas suggested Eggerer, but she declined the nomination. Eggerer then nominated Ward 5 trustee Colleen Munro, who also refused and Pettigrew was acclaimed.
The board debated vigourously when it came to the vice chair position. Trustees decided to have two vice chairs. Current vice chair LaPeare kept her position and Ward 4 trustee Helen Clease will be the second.
Trustees later re-selected which members would sit on the school divisions’ 23 different committees.
Trustees agreed to submit a request to Alberta Education for seven different sets of portables.
An amendment was made to the initial submission to have four portables from Langdon, initially supposed to be sent to Prince of Peace Lutheran School and Muriel Clayton Middle School, to the yet-to-be-opened Williamstown starter school. In addition, the four portables at Nose Creek that were slated to be shipped out would stay, in accordance with the motion.
The requests will be sent to Alberta Education on or before Nov. 1. The priorities also include two portables for George McDougall High School, two at Rainbow Creek Elementary, two at École Edwards Elementary School and two at Manachaban Middle School.
Trustees debated for 80 minutes before the motion was carried 4-3.
After initial numbers were collected from September, RVS is once again growing. The report was delivered by Greg Bass, RVS’ superintendent of schools.
Airdrie and Cochrane each grew by 3.7 per cent while Chestermere had the largest growth at 3.9 per cent. Springbank-Bragg Creek only grew 0.1 per cent, Beiseker-Kathyrn grew 0.2 per cent and Crossfield shrunk 0.6 per cent.
In total, the school division added 564 students, an increase of 3.2 per cent from September 2010. The school board now has 17,943 students in its 36 schools.
The next meeting of the Rocky View Schools board of trustees will be at 1 p.m. Nov. 3, at the RVS Education Centre.
