WEYBURN - The schools in the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division have seen an increase in the number of students needing intensive supports.
Trustees were told at their December meeting on Wednesday they now have 99 students requiring intensive supports, up from 77 students a year ago.
The Ministry of Education gave a breakdown of the types of supports needed, as well as how many students are at each Holy Family school.
Those needing occasional supports totaled 29 students, including four with multiple disabilities, and those needing frequent supports totaled 70, including 16 with multiple disabilities.
Those needing occasional supports include four with an intellectual disability; one with bipolar, depressive or anxiety-related disorders; four on the autism spectrum, 11 others diagnosed and 13 undiagnosed disorders.
Those requiring frequent supports include 13 with an intellectual disability; three with an orthopedic disability; 19 on the autism spectrum; three with physical health impairments; 21 with other diagnosed disorders, and 27 students who are as yet undiagnosed.
Broken down by schools, St. Michael has 42 students needing supports; Sacred Heart has 22; St. Mary’s has 15; St. Olivier has 10, and St. Augustine has 10.
• In other school board business, the ministry sent out parameters for student assessments, and are asking for nominations of teachers from each school division who will work with the ministry to develop assessment protocols for use across the province.
Saskatchewan is currently the only province in Canada does not do provincial assessments of students from Grades 1-12.
The ministry is looking to do assessments of Grades 1-3 in reading; Grades 4, 7 and 10 in English language arts; and Grades 5 and 9 in math.
According to information from the ministry, student assessments will be based on the provincial curriculum; will inform grade-level understanding; will communicate student performance to students, parents and teachers; and will inform a review of curriculum, policies and programs.
The ministry does not want assessments to lead to teaching of additional content outside of the curriculum, to replace teacher-prepared classroom assessments, or to be used by the ministry to rank schools or teachers.
The goal for the timeline is, in the 2025-26 school year, to do reading data collection for Grades 1-3; do a math assessment field test for Grades 5 and 9, and an English language arts field test for Grade 7. The ELA field test will be held for Grade 4 and 10 in the 2026-27 school year, with math assessments in Grades 5 and 9, and ELA assessment in Grade 7. Full operation of assessments will then be set fo the 2027-28 school year.
For the current school year, the ministry would like to have teacher development of assessment items, classroom engagements and procurement of software and configuration.
