SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Allan Shortt, former vice-chair of Yellowknife Education District No. 1, was elected the new chairperson of the school board at Tuesday night's school board meeting.

John Stephenson, left, the new vice-chairperson and Allan Shortt, the new chairperson of the Yk1 school board, were elected to the positions during Tuesday night's organizational meeting. - Adrian Lysenko/NNSL photo

Shortt will be replacing Duff Spence as chair. At last month's meeting Spence announced he would not be seeking re-election as head of the board after holding the title for three years.

Spence will now sit on the board as a regular trustee.

"I would really like to thank Duff for all his efforts," said Shortt. "He's really done an amazing job."

Shortt is superintendent for Clark Builders and has two daughters who attend Yk1 schools.

Also at the meeting, John Stephenson was elected vice-chairperson. Stephenson, a retired worker for the GNWT, was elected to the board in 2009 and has two children who attend Yk1 schools.

"I'm sure we will work as hard as Duff had to promote Yk1," said Shortt. "I hope we have a great and successful year."

Enrolment up

Allan Shortt was pleased to announce enrolment numbers are up for the district at the school board meeting.

"Our enrolment has been declining but to date our enrolment has been up this year," said Shortt, adding superintendent Metro Huculak "has done a great job."

The district has 1,869.5 students this school year, compared to 1,818.5 students last year, according to Huculak.

"It's a nice time to step into chair," said Shortt.

Huculak said the enrolment increase is mainly due to kindergarten numbers being up, as well as the creation of the Route 51 learning institute which has 81.5 students registered full-time.

New website

In his public relations report Trustee John Stephenson said the school board's new website has been launched in the past few weeks.

With the launch of the new website, the school board is having a contest where students can search for their school's logo hidden on the Yk1 website.

"They look excellent and they're starting to provide great service to the schools," said Stephenson.

"It's just a fun way to try and get families looking at the website to find the different tools and information that's on there."

The winners of the contest will be given a $25 gift certificate and will then be entered into a draw to win a $100 gift certificate from Overlander Sports.

Students are also encouraged to find the superintendent who is hidden somewhere on the website as well.