"Missing piece of history" found

A “missing piece ” in Aspen View Public Schools Division history was discovered by accident over the summer.

Tammy Ledieu, school division executive assistant, was making electronic copies of old board of trustee meeting minutes from the division's vault, when she came across a yellowing gem of historical significance.

What she found was the Athabasca School Division's establishment minutes, from Dec. 21, 1938.

“It's a missing piece of history, ” said Mark Francis, Aspen View Public Schools Division superintendent. “It's nice to see a little piece of history, and some of (the minutes) we will hold onto and we will make some available to the archives. ”

He said one question that recently came up at a board meeting in Smoky Lake was answered by the discovery of the minutes - who exactly H.A. Kostash is. Smoky Lake's school is named after Kostash.

According to the meeting minutes, Kostash was in fact the first superintendent of the Athabasca School Division. Edwin Parr's name also appears in the minutes, as he was the first board chair.

“We always knew they were in the vault, ” Ledieu said. “We didn't know for sure how far back they went in the vault, so when I came across the establishment minutes it was interesting. ”

The Athabasca School Division became the Aspen View Regional School Division in 1995, with the amalgamation of boards of education throughout the counties of Athabasca, Thorhild and Smoky Lake. In 2013 the division became the Aspen View Public Schools Division.

Ledieu added it was interesting to see costs and wages from the time, including that the secretary treasurer was paid $900 a month - providing he hired his own secretarial staff. Trustees were given $5 a day for time spent travelling to board meeting.

Francis what caught his eye in the minutes was the apparent controversy over the location of the division office, that the minister of education at the time was dead-set against the office being in Athabasca.

In the Jan. 18, 1939 board of trustees meeting minutes, Parr advises a meeting took place at the trustees' convention in Edmonton with the Minister of Education, regarding the location of the division office.

“At the interview, which was attended by both the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education, (Parr) was given to understand that the Government would be more partial to Colinton or Boyle, and that Athabasca was ruled out, ” the minutes read.

A secret ballot was held, and the trustees voted 3-2 the office would be located in Colinton for a period of a year.

“I would love to get the backstory (on why Athabasca was unacceptable), ” Francis said. “Clearly politics were at play in 1938 as well. ”

He added what is most striking is aside from the minutes being recorded on a typewriter - corrections made by hand - the board of 1938 is not so dissimilar from the board of 2017.

“Times change, but things stay the same, ” Francis said. “Some of the rural struggles they had, talking about mileage and distance between schools, that was a conversation in 1938 and it continues to be a conversation today. ”