The Chinook School Division held their Annual General Meeting for the 2010-11 year last night.

Deputy Director of Education Kyle McIntyre said one of their biggest highlights from that year was the success of their Balanced Literacy Initiative.

“So we had 78% of our students either meeting or exceeding the benchmarks that we set with our literacy goal as a board.”

McIntyre adds they are maintaining that initiative this year, and they have started their Math Momentum Initiative, which he hopes brings just as much success as the literacy initiative.

Chairman Randy Beler said there was a lot of success on the board's point of view,

“We've made lots of of strides with the SCC's, we've got the new school going, it's been a real good year for us the Balanced Literacy has been just wonderful.”

Last year, the school board developed standing committees dealing with facilities, finance, transportation and technology, and Beler says so far they have proved successful in helping the board make more informed decisions.

Secretary-Treasurer Rod Quinton said it was a good year financially, posting a budget surplus despite a decrease in tax revenues with the province decreasing the mill rate.

“The Ministry had no way to advise us that they were going to reduce the mill rate in 2011 so we projected our mill rate on what we knew at the time and of course when the reduced mill rate came out it obviously affected our tax revenues we knew also it would increase our grant revenues.”

And with a change in the educational funding formula expected in tomorrow's Provincial Budget, Quintin says they already have a good idea on how it will impact the school division, and is hopeful the total funding will be large enough to supply them with their funds for this year.