2020 was a very strange and challenging year for education, as the province-wide shutdown of schools in March and the more recent cancellation of classes for Grade 7-12 students at the end of November means students practically spent more time learning from home than they did in class.
When looking back on the past year, Pembina Hills board chair Jennifer Tuininga said they are grateful for their staff, who managed to adapt to the “constantly changing” provincial regulations and stayed focused on continuing to provide students with a great education.
“We also appreciate the co-operation of our parents/families in adhering to the (COVID-19) protocols,” Tuininga said.
“Our schools have tried to be creative to keep students engaged and have worked hard to ensure that at-home learning is not a barrier by providing devices and printed material.”
When asked if there were any positives to take from 2020, Tuininga suggested the development of School Messenger (a phone, e-mail and text messaging service) was one such achievement, as it emerged from the need to create a main hub for information. Pembina Hills also relied greatly on the website to quickly communicate information to parents, she noted.
Another positive development from this unusual year was the high enrolment in the new summer school courses offered through Vista Virtual School (VVS), she said.
Besides the school shutdowns caused by COVID-19, 2020 was also notable for Pembina Hills because of the province’s decision to end the service agreement with the school division to operate the Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC) in Barrhead.
The province intended to provide Pembina Hills $14 million in 2020-2021 to operate the ADLC and $7 million in 2021-2022. Faced with drastically-reduced funding, Pembina Hills trustees opted to cease operation of the ADLC at the end of 2020-2021. As such, this year will mark the closure of the ADLC.
Tuininga said the closure of the ADLC affects staffing across the division, as all the staff working there are employees at Pembina Hills.
As such, Tuininga said every school site in the division will see some changes to their staffing configuration in 2021-2022 as Pembina Hills shuffles around some positions.
Also, because Pembina Hills is no longer administering the service agreement for ADLC, Tuininga said there will be no budget line for its operation, which in turn means more administration costs will be shared across the division.
While Vista Virtual School’s enrolment shot up this year due to the uncertainty around COVID-19, Tuininga said it will be interesting to see what happens in the following school year and if VVS will retain those students.
“Vista Virtual School is the largest online school in the province, and there is the opportunity for students registered in another school to take a course (through VVS) if they have an active service agreement with Pembina Hills,” she said.
On a final note, one of the projects of this board has been to lobby the province to raise the speed limits for school buses. Alberta is the only province that mandates school buses can travel a maximum of 90 kilometres per hour, even when the posted speed limit is higher.
The problem with this lower speed limit is that it creates confrontations between bus drivers and other motorists, as well as increasing the amount of time students must spend on the road.
To that end, Pembina Hills sponsored a policy position that was adopted by the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) to lobby the province to allow school buses to travel the posted speed limit.
Unfortunately, Tuininga said they have not heard anything further about their efforts in this area, despite raising the issue in their meetings with the Student Transportation Task Force and sending letters to local MLAs and the Ministers of Transportation and Education.
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