Attendance Matters Post Contest

After reviewing the 180 submissions in the Board of Trustees Attendance Matters poster contest, the Board is excited to announce the winners of the contest are: 

Kindergarten to Grade 3: Patrick Stahl from Breaking Point Colony School
Grade 3 to Grade 6: Kady Stahl from Breaking Point Colony School
Grade 7 to Grade 9: Khezley Serrano from Paul Rowe Jr./Sr. High School
Grade 10 to Grade 12: Brianna Leslie from Peace River High School

“Congratulations to the winners and thank you to each and every student who entered our contest. You certainly did not make our job of picking a winner easy,” said Board Chair Crystal Owens.

The Attendance Matters Poster Contest was part of a social media and website awareness campaign by the Board of Trustees around the benefits of regular school attendance.

Board approves debenture for Central Operations building improvement project

The Board of Trustees have approved a $750,000 debenture required to move forward with important repairs and improvements to the Division’s Central Operations building in Grimshaw. 

Click HERE to read the full news release.

Edwin Parr Teacher Award

The Peace River School Division is pleased to present Grimshaw Public School Grade 3 teacher Ethan Toews as their nominee for the 2024 Edwin Parr Teacher Award.

Click HERE to read the full news release.

Department Presentation: Transportation

Members of the PRSD’s Transportation Department, including Transportation Manager Merlin Lee and Transportation Operations Supervisor Tammy Glenn, spoke to the Board of Trustees during the April 18 meeting. Currently, the PRSD transports 2,617 students to and from school daily, said Glenn. She went on to say there are another 681 students who are eligible to ride the bus, but do not. The Division has 106 staff members, including 69 regular drivers and 30 active spares, six licensed mechanics and one spare. 

While the Transportation department is always looking to train and hire new bus drivers, the current areas of greatest need are Peace River, Manning and Fairview because of a lack of available spares resulting in the highest number of delayed or cancelled bus routes so far this year.

Menno Simons School Calendar

The Board of Trustees approved an alternate school year calendar for Menno Simons Community School for an additional three years, providing the results remain positive at each annual review. Menno Simmons was first granted an alternate calendar in the 2023-2024 school year. The alternate calendar provides staff and students with two additional holidays to accommodate religious holidays recognized by the majority of the Menno Simons school community, and sees students in Kindergarten through Grade 9 finish school following the second week in June. The shorter school year is made possible by having less time for lunch and recess in order to achieve the government-required amount of instructional time.

During the discussion, Superintendent Adam Murray said that having not quite one-year of data has not provided enough information to accurately measure what kind of effect the alternate calendar has had on the school. While the Menno Simons School Council has indicated they feel the alternate calendar has been positive for the staff and students in their community, Murray said over the next three years he would be looking at enrollment numbers, hoping to see them return to historical levels or higher, as well as academic achievement, hoping to see continued movement in the right direction. 

Murray also told the trustees he would never want an alternate school calendar to jeopardize the high school programming in small schools, which is why the Menno Simons calendar only applies to K-9 students. He also stated that he has no desire to see an alternate calendar ripple through the Division.

Trustee Compensation Review

The Board of Trustees passed a motion requesting Brian Callaghan, consultant from the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta, be engaged to complete a trustee compensation review for the PRSD by April 30. 

The Board of Trustees do have an opportunity to review their compensation annually, in August. However, the Trustees have not approved an increase to their compensation package since 2017.

Vaping

Trustee Lori Leitch briefed the Board on the Alberta School Boards’ Association Zone 1 meeting held on April 10. During this discussion, the Trustees read and discussed the ASBA’s position statement on vaping. This statement requests that Alberta Government Ministries, including Health, Education, Mental Health and Addiction, Alberta Treasury Board and Finance work together to update the Tobacco, Smoking and Vaping Reduction Regulation to include the prohibition of the sale of flavoured vaping products.

The Board approved a motion supporting the ASBA’s position statement on vaping followed by a second motion asking PRSD administration to draft a letter to the above-mentioned ministries, adding their voice to the matter.