Aspen View
2023 was an eventful year for Aspen View Public Schools Division (AVPS) and it’s approximately 2,625 students. Former Superintendent and CEO of schools Neil O’Shea announced his departure at the end of the 2022-2023 school year after serving in the role for five years, prompting the division to find a suitable candidate up to the task of stepping into what AVPS board chair Candy Nikipelo described as “big shoes to fill.”
Constantine Kastrinos was hired with the help of a consultant from the Alberta School Boards Association following O’Shea’s March 9 resignation. He officially began his role on the first day of September, but in a Sept. 11 interview with the Athabasca Advocate, Kastrinos said the work started before students were back in the classroom.
“I moved in Aug. 1, and I started coming to work steadily every day going out to schools. I toured all the schools with the previous superintendent,” said Kastrinos.
“Everyone has a superpower — it could be some people are really bright, some people are good at networking —, mine is I think relational. I like to be in the community, I like to get to know people, and I think that’s a good foundation,” he added.
Shortly after Kastrinos began his new job, the AVPS board re-elected trustee Candy Nikipelo as chair and trustee Anne Karczmarczyk as vice chair during the Sept. 14 organizational meeting. Both women expressed eagerness to continue with their roles — Karczmarczyk is half-way through her first four-year term as a trustee, and Nikipelo held vice-chair prior to four years of chair election.
On Oct. 26, the board made what Nikipelo has called a tough decision to revisit the Rochester School viability study after trustees reviewed critical enrollment data which shows the school is one of four at risk of losing almost half a million dollars in provincial funding.
Rochester, along with Vilna, Smith, and Grassland School’s, sit below the elementary enrolment thresholds outlined in AVPS’s own policies, with less than 40 students from Grades 1 to 6 enrolled. Rochester, Smith, and Grassland are also below the 30-student enrolment thresholds for Grades 1-9, while Vilna sits slightly above.
“Rochester is at risk of falling below the threshold for the rural small school funding if enrolments continues to decline,” said Amber Oko, AVPS secretary treasurer during the Oct. 26 meeting. Total enrolment for the school is 38 students, but Oko said “when we look at that in full-time equivalencies (FTE), that is sitting at 36 students, and that funding threshold is 35.”
According to Oko, $455,270 in funding from the provincial rural small schools grant would be lost if Rochester were to fall below the enrolment threshold. Although three other schools are also at risk of funding losses, the future of Rochester School had first been questioned two years ago.
The board motioned to conduct a viability study of Rochester School in December 2021, and in January 2022 hired Focus 10 Educational Consulting Group Inc. to conduct a thorough third-party review of the school. The report was presented to the board Feb. 14, 2022, and contained a recommendation to close the school, and in April 2022, after months of community and stakeholder engagement, the board unanimously decided against closing the school.
Trustees also voted to review Rochester’s viability again ahead of the 2023-2024 school year, and after a year's grace period the community of Rochester is awaiting the board's decision, which is expected to be made January 25, 2024. AVPS is collecting community feedback and has announced its intention to consider all input while considering the decision.
Sept 9 suspicious fire
Alberta saw its “busiest” wildfire season on record in 2023, with more than two million hectares burnt by fires, an area ten times more severe than the five-year average, according to the provincial government.
Nearly one month after thousands of Hay River residents evacuated for a second time due to threat of approaching wildfires, the Athabasca RCMP and emergency services responded to a report of a fire much closer to home — for one family in particular.
In the early morning of Sept. 9 Jessica Delgado, her husband, and their five children exited their home north of Athabasca and called 911. The house, along with multiple vehicles, was on fire, and the words “Go home,” were spray painted on the garage door.
Athabasca County Regional Fire Chief Travis Shalapay said investigators determined the blaze was “human-caused,” and RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Gina Slaney said the graffiti was not known to be present before the fire. Staff Sgt. Mark Hall said an investigation is underway.
Delgado’s husband, German Martenez, told CBC the family had intentions to leave the area in the wake of the fire. “It’s scary … I don’t want to come back here and put my kids in danger,” he said. But close to three months later, Delgado said the level of community support the family has received has reminded them of why they fell in love with Athabasca a little more than a year ago.
Martenez’s boss started a GoFundMe page, collecting donations to get the family of seven back on their feet. More than 30 contributions have raised over $10,000 of the $25,000 open-ended goal. Community support came in the form of bedding, medicine, and food from community members as the family recovered.
The Athabasca Lions Club contributed $1,500 in the form of a cheque, Athabasca County Family and Community Support Services donated clothing, and the Athabasca Native Friendship Centre Society donated grocery store gift cards. Delgado also said the many social media messages of support were appreciated by the family.
“We were overwhelmed with all these responses … there was just all these people sending all these nice messages, like they can’t believe stuff like that happened to us, and to hang in there. There were people that would bring us warm meals and stuff like that. It was just amazing seeing how Athabasca came through for us,” said Delgado.
Delgado and family are currently living in Lac La Biche County, but said they hope to return to the community that helped them through the loss of their home one day.
Duperron sentencing
Two individuals found guilty of murdering a 25-year-old woman hailing from Bigstone Cree Nation in 2019 were sentenced for their roles in the kidnapping, torture, and death of Nature Duperron.
At Edmonton Court of Kings Bench Sept. 11, Justice Robert Graesser passed down the sentences Duperron’s family had long been waiting for. Buddy Underwood, 24 at the time of the murder in 2019, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years, and Tyra Muskego, 25, was given 12 years in prison.
Both were found guilty in a 19-day trial in October 2022; both were convicted of robbery and forcible confinement, but Underwood was found guilty of second-degree murder, while Muskego was convicted of manslaughter.
Grayson Eashappie and Kala Basjusz pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder in September of last year; the deal also saw the Crown drop charges of kidnapping and theft.
Prior to the final sentencing of Duperron’s killers — who abducted her from Edmonton, robbed her, beat her, forcibly injected her with fentanyl and left her to die in a rural area outside of Hinton, Alta. — the court heard powerful victim impact statements from Duperron’s loved ones.
“It’s like watching a genocide within our own nation,” Cheryl Uchytil, Duperron’s mother, told court after learning her daughters killers were also Indigenous.
“Her youngest son still cries for her, and there’s nothing I can do or say to take his pain away,” said Summer Uchytil, Duperron’s sister. “How do you explain to a child that he will never see his mommy again for the rest of his life?”
“I hope some peace will be found, but there will be no further answers…,” said Graesser as he passed down the sentences.
Calling Lake State of Emergency
The hamlet of Calling Lake, located in the M.D. of Opportunity No. 17, was placed into a state of local emergency (SOLE) by M.D. reeve Marcel Auger after a September crime wave left residents feeling unsafe in their own homes.
By Oct. 18, the story had picked up provincial traction, with news crews from CBC, Global News, and CTV driving out to Calling Lake for a closed doors community meeting that featured MLA Scott Sinclair, Auger, representatives from the RCMP, and prominent community members.
“We’re very concerned about the area, even if the numbers don’t match it,” said Sinclair. “We believe that the community and residents in the area, even through they’re in the northern part of the province, fundamentally deserve the right to raise and to live in communities where public safety is paramount.”
Members of the Calling Lake Community Society organized the meeting, including society president Roger Smolnicky, who called for judicial reform as part of the solution.
“Our society wants to support the community in any way possible, and our community members were vocal about the meeting,” said Smolnicky. “It was good to hear that we had some solutions, because it is still an ongoing problem.”
Each SOLE declaration lasts for seven days, and councillors have been renewing it each week — the most recent renewal occurred Jan. 3, and it will be up again for discussion again Jan. 10.
Surprise Scrapyard
One Athabasca County family had a stressful summer after finding an illegal scrapyard set up on their neighbours property.
Allan Jenkins, a local farmer who owns land south of Breynat, has been living and farming in Athabasca County for decades, raising ten kids along the way with his wife Lorraine. When Lorraine heard some loud noises last winter, the last thing the family expected to see was an industrial scrap-sorting business along the south side of the lot to the north of them.
“As a farmer and a neighbour I have many issues with this rezoning,” said Jenkins at the time. “That was a space that we had set aside, our whole family loves that trail and clump of trees. To go back there one day and find these piles of scrap metal and an excavator working, it’s really ruined something near and dear to us.”
The property had been bought by W.I.L Construction, a Saskatchewan-based company that deals with industrial waste from Fort McMurray. During a July 27 Athabasca County meeting, Walter Strutynski, owner of W.I.L. apologized for the mistake, and chalked it up to a simple misunderstanding — back home in Saskatchewan, a scrap-sorting yard would have been an allowed use of agriculturally zoned land.
Both parties had to wait until Aug. 31 to hear council’s decision; a second public hearing that day ran for around six hours and councillors didn’t feel they had enough time to discuss it.
Ultimately the rezoning bylaw was defeated after councillors deadlocked in a 4-4 vote. Half the council, including reeve Brian Hall and Coun. Natasha Kapitaniuk were in favour of the project for its economic potential, whereas the other half was concerned about the manner in which the company started, and the possible damage to neighbouring farmland.
“I myself don’t agree with the way that this was all brought about,” said Coun. Rob Minns, who voted against the project. “Just because they could do it in Saskatchewan, well sometimes you’ve got to click your heels and realize where you’re at.”
