MELFORT — The North East School Division (NESD) moved some technology projects ahead during their last meeting on March 28.
The board approved special funding for two projects from the technology department. Director of Education Stacy Lair said the requests had been made to fund the projects for the 2026-27 school year, but the division decided to move them up to this budget year.
"One of the asks from the technology department that was approved by the board was some funds in advance of next year's budget cycle, so to borrow in advance of next year's cycle is how you could look at it,” Lair explained. “The ask was specifically for wireless networking replacements.”
Lair said some wireless networking equipment was scheduled for replacement in the 2026–27 budget cycle as part of its planned lifecycle management. However, in November 2025, the manufacturer advanced the end-of-life (EOL) date to July 2026.
"The technology department would like to take care of that in the summer, and one of the reasons why is because the system was at end-of-life,” Lair said. “Usually, that means that you can still utilize it for a few months. However, in this case, we could not.”
She said the equipment was destined to be replaced, but this will speed up the process to help out the IT department.
"They often do a lot of these heavy lifts in the summertime, as you can imagine, when staff aren't in schools,” Lair said.
The wireless networking equipment replacement will cost an estimated $265,000. It will be installed in Bjorkdale, Central Park and Wagner Schools in Nipawin, Hudson Bay, Maude Burke in Melfort, Miner Creek, Naicam, Porcupine Plain, Tisdale Elementary School, White Fox, William Mason School in Choiceland, and the NESD Division Office in Melfort.
The second request involved classroom sound system upgrades. Lair said that post-pandemic, the division has been working on upgrading sound systems.
"We know just in general, it is nice for teachers in classrooms to be able to just have a regular tone in their voice and not have to project louder,” Lair said.
“(It’s) to upgrade those classroom sound systems, as well as our gym and our hallway systems, and make sure that we stay on top of them so we don't have failures, we don't have things sounding poorly, we can start to renew,” she explained.
Central Park Elementary and Porcupine Plain Comprehensive School will receive a classroom sound system upgrade. The expected cost is $140,000, with final configuration and installation anticipated to cost $40,000 for the 2026-27 school year.
Lair said that the technology department in the NESD is a very busy department.
"We have specialists and programmers and our network leads and our manager,” she said.
“It's such a big piece of required piece in education and for our business operations.”
She said the department really helps to keep the entire division on top of changing technology.
"Our technology department is just outstanding at really responding to the users and being there not for the purpose of tech, but for the purpose of the work and the learning that needs to happen,” she said.
Lair explained that this was an acceleration of work that the department already anticipated as part of the life cycle.
“Our technology department has worked really hard to have asset management and lifecycle replacement worked in a big picture so that we have and can stay on top of these kinds of purchases,” Lair said. “This was not out of the ordinary.”
Lair said it was added to the board package in March because it was not a regular budgeted item. It was advanced from the next budget and was a temporary reallocation of future budget dollars.
Budget-wise, the money was taken from the accumulated surplus, which all divisions have developed over their lifetime.
"It's kind of like a reallocation—that's temporary—to get this done in advance, but the board is in control of decisions like that,” Lair said.
The North East School Division Board of Education held their next regular meeting on April 28 at Hudson Bay Community School.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
