New Pembina Hills trustees still learning the ropes

With four of the seven trustees having been elected in October, the Pembina Hills Public Schools board is still learning the ropes and doesn’t have any major projects on the go, such as the attendance area review carried out in 2016.

Board chair Jennifer Tuininga repeated their Three-Year Education Plan’s priorities for 2017-2018: literacy, numeracy, supporting the diversity of student needs and student-teacher relationships.

“As we head into spring planning, which starts in February and goes into March, we’ll be meeting with principals and administration and kind of going over some of those priorities and the strategies we’ve been using and see what needs adjustment,” said Tuininga.

With the construction of Neerlandia Christian Public School and the modernization of Pembina North Community School, the division also has no dire emergencies in terms of capital projects, though they continue to lobby the province for a modernization of Barrhead Composite High School and Westlock Elementary School.

“We’re constantly updating and looking at our facilities,” Tuininga said.

She did note, however, that Pembina Hills is working on establishing a new service agreement with the province to operate the Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC).

Looking back to some of the major developments from 2017 that might flow into the new year, one recent development that will potentially impact Pembina Hills is the recent passage of Bill 28, the School Amendment Act.

Bill 28 introduces new age restrictions for children entering Kindergarten, authorizes the Education Minister to establish standards for education service agreements and eliminates a 2.4-kilometre requirement for families to be eligible for bussing to a nearby school.

However, Tuininga said they will have to wait on the regulations to come out in the new year to determine what policy changes are needed at Pembina Hills.

“Bill 28 is the legislation, but it’s the regulations that actually dictate where … policy changes might be needed,” she said. “So we have to wait for those to come through.”

One issue that created a considerable headache during the latter half of the 2016-2017 school year was the elimination of school fees through Bill 1.

Although school divisions received funding to compensate for the loss of revenue from school fees, the province mandated that schools had to post a schedule of fees that they would charge in 2017-2018 at the end of the previous school year.

It was difficult enough estimating what fees they might charge during the following year; extracurricular sports teams, for instance, rarely figure out what tournaments they’re going to the following seasons. But schools also had to submit those schedules to the province for review in a very short time frame.

“Our schools did a really good job of compiling information for those requirements,” said Tuininga. “We’re just continuing to build systems so that the paperwork runs smoothly.”

Pembina Hills has also started talks with the Town of Westlock over declining enrolment at both local schools.

Back in October, the board learned that enrolment at Westlock Elementary and R.F. Staples School had dropped a whopping 69 students from last year.

Pembina Hills administration intended to contact the town to discuss their survey results and perhaps determine what had fuelled the drop.

“We’ve exchanged information with them. But we haven’t had a chance to look at it in detail yet,” said Tuininga.

The board — or rather, two of its trustees — will also be meeting with the MD of Lesser Slave River and Westlock County to go over transportation numbers and bussing issues in the northern reaches of Pembina Hlls.

“I had sent all of our municipalities information about enrolment at our schools, then they had replied with a letter,” she said.

“After reading that letter, I thought maybe we could just set up a meeting and talk in person to give them more information.”

On a final note, there is still no further updates concerning the case of former superintendent Colleen Symyrozum-Watt.

After the dismissal of the former superintendent, Pembina Hills had forward complaints to the RCMP, the College of Alberta School Superintendents and the Office of the Registrar regarding allegations of harassment, misleading the board and so on. Symyrozum-Watt had also threatened legal action against the division.

Tuininga indicated they had heard nothing further about the complaints or the former superintendent’s potential lawsuit. “I don’t have anything to report,” she said.