Growth continues to be a keyword within the Horizon School Division.

On Wednesday, the division held its annual meeting of electors to review the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

Director of Education Kevin Garinger says that the future continues to look good.

"We're very excited about the growth we have seen in students in terms of their success around literacy," he explained. "When we look at the assessment of our Grade 3 students, which is ultimately what is reported to the Ministry of Education, we saw an increase of 20%."

"We were just short of the education sector strategic plan goal of 80% for all Grade 3 students. We're very happy that we are on a trajectory that will take us where we need to go."

Garinger says that the upward trend is a credit to those who work with the students on a daily basis.

"I have to credit that to our teachers and support staff and our administration who all work so hard and have done a great job supporting our students."

The strength in numbers can be shown in renovations as well, as the division put up over eight million dollars to invest in major upgrades to St. Brieux School.

Garinger says that the renovations should be complete ahead of the 2017-18 school year.

The division has also seen a spike in technological advances, that Garinger was quite excited to share.

"We spent significant dollars on the infrastructure pieces that relate to wireless technology," he said. "Now, we are putting the hardware in front of our students and teachers. Every teacher in the system now has a laptop device that they can use. Every school now, we are rolling out Google Chromebooks, and they are a tremendous device."

Although the future of school divisions as a whole is uncertain across the province, Garinger says that it is business as usual within the HSD.

"The reality is we don't know what it is going to look like. If something does change, and I would expect that decision to be fairly soon, we as leaders in education need to be able to respond to that and support people through that."

"We continue to do the work that we need to do in supporting our students. Student learning can not take a back seat to things that are happening in terms of transformational change," continued Garinger. "We will continue to focus on ensuring our kids are getting what they need every single day in our schools."

Part of assessing the day-to-day lives of students is the Review of School Effectiveness program, which is currently underway across the division.