The past year was filled with many celebrations in the Hanover School Division, as well as hardships. 

Board Chair Brad Unger says it was exciting to finally break ground on the new Early Year’s School in Steinbach, which is scheduled to open in 2025. 

It is being built on the west side of Steinbach, off McKenzie Avenue. The school will provide space for 500 students and be capable of expanding to 600. 

Unger says it was also a celebratory atmosphere at Mitchell Middle School during the groundbreaking ceremony for the 4-classroom addition. 

“It’s exciting to see how Hanover School Division continues to be a place where families want to move here, and families want their kids to go into our schools,” he says. 

Another celebration took place at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School to mark 50 years since its doors first opened. 

Unger notes there were many successful seasons for various sports teams in schools across the division, with many championships being won. 

Several students also excelled at the different Skills competitions. 

The Hanover School Division received an increase in mental health funding, which Unger says was really helpful. 

“Mental health is obviously a great big issue today for a lot of people and we're keeping that in mind. So that was really good to see some attention paid to that.” 

However, the board of trustees wrestled with budget cuts due to a shortage of education funding, Unger says. 

“We're still waiting to hear from the government as far as the new funding model. There are some promises about it happening in the new year, hopefully early on in the new year, but we don't have an exact date for that. We have reached out to them, and we have received correspondence back, but nothing concrete. We don't have any percentages or numbers or anything like that, more just a promise that it is coming.” 

The Hanover School Division is forecasting an $800,000 deficit by the end of this budget year.

Unger says the funding shortage played a role in creating some challenges for their negotiations team and he is thankful they were able to resolve things and have the educational assistants return to the classrooms. 

“It was a challenging time. I do also want to recognize the hard work that was put in by our negotiating team, by the schools that stepped up when there was some shortage of workers within the schools, and I also want to recognize how glad we are to have these EA's back and doing a fantastic job.” 

Unger says he is thankful for all the staff in the Hanover School Division and appreciates being able to serve on the board of trustees. 

 

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