Grade 5 students at Westlock Elementary School may soon be taking a biblical studies course again.
Parent Robin Brett has been lobbying to bring the course brought back to the school, appearing at the March 20 Parent Advisory Council meeting with a petition signed by parents who would like to see the course return.
This school year is the first time the course has not run at the school in many years. It stopped running starting in September 2012 due to declining enrolment, said former WES principal Terry Anderson.
“It’s at the point where, with so many students not even taking it, we think we can make better use of class time,” Anderson said last August when news of the course’s demise broke.
Brett said he felt the decision to cut the course was wrong, and was upset with how the decision seemed to come out of the blue.
“Biblical studies was a long-established and successful program for well over 30 years and last year it was just arbitrarily cast aside,” he said. “Now the optics of that are very concerning and I feel the decision to cancel this course should be reconsidered.”
Along with the petition he got people to sign, Brett also wrote a letter to PAC members, outlining his argument to reinstate the course.
In the letter, he argued because the course was optional, students whose parents did not want them to learn about the Bible would not have needed to sit through the lessons.
He also said the course merely served as an overview of the Christian faith.
The reason for circulating a petition was to determine how much interest there was in bringing the course back.
“I wanted it to be not just me, as a single individual, coming there requesting it,” he said. “I wanted to do it on behalf of several voices that want to see this come back.”
Having presented the petition, and having it be well received by PAC members, Brett said the next step appears to be speaking with principal Steven Kaplan about determining what a curriculum would look like for the course’s reincarnation.
However, Brett said bringing the course back could require a school-wide survey or even approval from Pembina Hills school division trustees.
In the interim, he said he plans to speak to those teachers who taught the course in the past to see what it used to look like, and what forms it could take in the future.
“I think this course is something that worked well and could work well again,” Brett said.
