BARRHEAD/WESTLOCK - Pembina Hills School Division trustees passed a motion at their Dec. 14 meeting to accept the 2023-2024 school year calendar, which introduces a week-long fall break in mid-November among other changes.
“This calendar looks very, very different from what we thought we would be presenting to you,” said director of education services Raime Drake.
Drake said Pembina Hills administration has heard input on the new calendar throughout the year and have presented different versions to school administrators on multiple occasions. In turn, those administrators share the calendar with teachers and program assistants.
She added that trustees have received feedback from parents, who were also asked to complete a short survey a couple weeks ago. While their responses were very diverse, parents appreciated the opportunity to give that feedback.
The 2023-2024 school year will begin with staff returning to work on Aug. 28, while students will have their first day of school on Aug. 30.
As alluded to above, the biggest change in this year’s calendar compared to other years was the introduction of a fall break from Nov. 6-9, with Nov. 10 being a statutory holiday.
“We heard overwhelmingly this year that staff would like to see a fall break,” Drake said, adding that staff see other neighbouring jurisdictions take a week-long break and they would like the same opportunity.
Drake indicated that putting the break during the week of Nov. 6-10 was somewhat influenced by the fact that cold and flu season hits mid-November.
Trustee Melissa Hanna asked if and when schools would then hold Remembrance Day events. Supt. Michael Borgfjord replied that, according to regulation, schools would be required to hold an event on the first instructional day prior to Nov. 11, which in this case would be Nov. 3.
Supt. Michael Borgfjord said they also investigated the possibility of starting the school year after Labour Day. However, school administrators clearly preferred the week-long break in November, while parents in the survey were split between preferring a November break or starting after Labour Day.
Incidentally, there were a lot of great ideas offered by parents in that survey, such as making the Christmas break shorter and ending the school year in June.
“People had lots of great ideas and asks, but given the constraints of what we know, we can’t accommodate all of those requests. But it was nice for them to have a voice,” Drake said.
Another request they heard from school staff, Drake said, was not to schedule any professional development (PD) days next to long weekends.
While this does come across as a four-day weekend for families if the PD day falls right before a holiday like Thanksgiving, teachers and educational assistants are “not getting that break,” she said.
Finally, some schools pushed for PD days that don’t involve making substitute plans. Drake said they were able to make that work for R.F. Staples School and Barrhead Composite High School last year, but not Barrhead or Westlock Elementary School.
Interestingly, this means all PD days throughout the year will fall on regular Fridays. Trustee Melissa Hanna asked if staff were supportive of that; Drake noted there had been some concern raised from teachers who also work as athletic coaches.
However, both Drake and Borgfjord stressed that it was impossible to make everyone happy, and if something doesn’t work, the school year calendar will be re-visited with more input being gathered from parents and staff.
“This is outside of what has been done for a while,” Borgfjord added.
Borgfjord said this calendar represents 950 hours of instructional time, which is the provincial requirement.
When asked by trustee David Truckey if there was some flexibility in that requirement in the event of bad weather, Borgfjord said there hasn’t been a complete closure of division facilities in a long time, but if one occurred, they would have to alter a PD day and change it to an instructional day.
Drake’s final note to trustees was that the semester turn-around day would normally fall on Jan. 31, but because having it occur mid-week is very awkward, they pushed the PD day to Friday, Feb. 2 so that teachers can meet their classes and set expectations on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
