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ATHABASCA - Aspen View Public Schools (AVPS) trustees had a chance for some face time with Alberta Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange, at a recent meeting.
On Sept. 30 five trustees including chair Candy Nikipelo took the trip to Bonnyville to sit down for a 30-minute meeting with the minister to discuss two issues in particular—transportation and the new curriculum roll-out.
“Our discussion with her centred around rural sustainability and we used that as the umbrella with our two topics, the first one being transportation of course,” said Nikipelo at the Oct. 6 regular meeting held at Boyle School.
One of the transportation topics was the MELT (mandatory entry-level training) program for bus drivers.
“She confirmed it’s here to stay but she suggested that if we, as a school division, have any more concerns about MELT we need to be contacting provincial transportation and the Treasury Board to advocate for any more change,” Nikipelo said. "And she reminded us of the changes that have happened with MELT; that the hours to receive it have been reduced (and) the cost is down from $10,000 to $5,000.”
Trustee Anne Karczmarczyk added the group also lobbied for more local control of bussing dollars, noting the 2.4 km restriction is too hard to implement in rural communities.
“We were asking basically for some autonomy in rural school boards, taking their transportation dollars and how to spend that in our own division,” she said.
The second topic grouped under the rural sustainability umbrella was the new curriculum roll-out, Nikipelo said.
“We suggested that our teachers are overwhelmed, and the resources are somehow not keeping up with the pace of the curriculum,” said Nikipelo. “And the truth was she was surprised that we suggested that. She claims that we are one of the only school divisions that has communicated that to her.”
Nikipelo had thought the curriculum would be a higher topic of discussion for other school boards but added there are reasons for AVPS to be concerned.
"She was surprised to hear when we emphasized that one-third of our (Kindergarten) to Grade 3 classrooms are multi-graded, and it is indeed overwhelming to those teachers that are doing the multi-grade classrooms,” she said.
She added she felt LaGrange heard what the delegation was saying but wasn’t sure if it would translate into any changes.
"We were scheduled to have a half-an-hour because we were her last one of the day but the education minister gave us a whole hour,” she said. “So, it was very nice and we had an excellent, excellent time with her.”
