ATHABASCA/BARRHEAD/WESTLOCK – The bell has rung on a new school year as students and staff returned to the classroom this week, in what is expected to be the first full, in-person school year in close to 24 months.
Staff and students at schools in the Pembina Hills School Division (PHSD) and Aspen View Public Schools (AVPS) began classes Aug. 29 and 30 after a long summer break, that saw the lifting of many COVID-19 restrictions across Alberta.
“This past week we met with all of our principals and associate principals and went through the start-up, things that we’re going to be doing and some of our priorities and making sure that people are ready for the start of the year,” said Pembina Hills Supt. Michael Borgfjord, noting the division’s 14 new teachers also had an orientation last week.
AVPS Supt. Neil O’Shea was out over two days travelling to each school in the division meeting staff along with the trustee for each school in the division, he said in an Aug. 25 interview.
“Me and the local trustee will go in and welcome everyone back and it’s been really nice to hear the laughter, see the smiles, hear people chatting with each other, something we haven’t seen (during COVID),” he said. “I think everybody’s returning on a positive note (and) teachers and staff have had a really good, restful summer away from work and not worried about COVID or what September is going to look like.”
Like other divisions, AVPS will be rolling out the new Kindergarten to Grade 3 curriculum, choosing to wait a year on the optional Grades 4-6 changes.
“We’ve got the curriculum that the government has implemented in front of us, and we will work hard on the math and English language arts, the math and numeracy for Kindergarten to Grade 1,” said O’Shea. “We’ve got some plans in place to manage that, we’ve got some support at each of our schools, and we’ve got support from central office for that implementation. We would rather focus our energies on the mandated subjects right now and not do any piloting.”
Borgfjord said they’ve also have been busy preparing for a new school year that will see a return to in-class learning and the implementation of the province’s new school curriculum, but also only for Grades 1 to 3.
“The (Grade) 1 to 3 curriculum we’re implementing this year, it’s mandatory across the province. (Grade) 4 to 6 is optional for school divisions, so you can pilot it this year,” said Borgfjord. “We’re not piloting the (Grades) 4 to 6 — we had all of our teachers meet and look at the curriculum and start to look at things in June.”
Borgfjord noted that the Grades 4 to 6 teachers in PHSD will be given “four curriculum professional development days this year to look at the curriculum and plan and prepare for the changes but will not be implementing it”.
“We’re not just going to wait a year (before) we have to implement it; we are going to give our professionals time to look at it, make a plan and to think about what types of things they’ll do next year when they have to implement it,” he said. “We’re going to communicate out as we move along — the curriculum wasn’t released until April, so we haven’t had a ton of time to really look at what the final draft was, but our teachers are going to be fine. We’re going to make sure we implement it well.”
AVPS will be focused on the current curriculum but may expand to checking out the Grade 4 to 6 pilot in the new year.
“We’ll wait and see if the direction from the government changes or not but our focus in the first three or four months will be getting our feet wet with the new curriculum,” O’Shea said. “We’ll consider what we’re going to do next year after January. We want to see how the K to Grade 3 math and numeracy rolls out.”
With a return to what is expected to be the first full year back post pandemic, Borgfjord said there is a big focus on supporting students and staff and their overall well-being this year as they return to the classroom.
“I think a big focus on this year, besides our learning goals, is really to support staff and students moving out post-pandemic and all the things that we weren’t able to do. To start reconnecting people and building a strong sense of community,” he said. “That’s going to be a big focus for the start of the year.”
While there will not be any COVID-19 protocols in place this school year, Borgfjord said they will continue with cleaning in schools, hand sanitizer will be available for students, staff and visitors to use.
“We’re not anticipating that we’re going to have to go back to COVID-19 protocols or masks, that’s an Alberta Health Services (decision),” said Borgfjord. “We’re looking forward to having events in schools again and more normal participation (for students) with sports and other things, so that’s what we’re planning for.”
Aspen View however will also have extra stations in every school, but some other measures are up to each school administration.
"Some schools may or may not keep some of the protocols such as staggered entry after recess, or that kind of thing but generally, we're just sticking with our cleaning protocols, proper hygiene and that kind of stuff,” said O’Shea.
Borgfjord also noted the importance of strengthening the school community this year, after a difficult two-year pandemic and the many challenges it brought for students, staff, and families.
“We know there’s a lot of healing that needs to go on (with regards to) COVID-19, that was very divisive in our communities,” he said. “We want everyone to reconnect, to get together and do what’s best for kids.”
O’Shea is excited for the promise of a ‘regular’ school year with the return of unrestricted activities including international travel.
“We’ve for some international trips booked for spring break of next year, we’re back to full on sports between schools, field trips would be back on in schools depending in where they want to go and what they want to do,” he said. “We’re not seeing any of those kinds of activities restricted in any way.”
One of the new kids at Westlock Elementary School this year is Grade 5 student Winter Dmyterko. He and his mom were at the school for an Open House Aug. 25 and met his new teacher, Brett Carnegie.
“I’m looking forward to a lot of stuff,” said Dmyterko, noting his favourite subject is math.
“It’s exciting to be back here,” added Carnegie. “It’s so much fun teaching the elementary kids. They’ve always liked coming to school and they’ve always got a lot of passion for being here and learning new things.”
In addition to teachers, several division schools will be seeing other new staff including principals and associate principals, as well as some new positions to help support students’ mental health. The new positions will be added to school’s counselling services teams.
“One of the things we’ve done for the division is we’ve got a social worker for the Westlock side and a social worker for the Barrhead side. We know that mental health and well-being is important, so we’ve added some of those supports to the schools for the fall,” explained Borgfjord. “The one started at R.F. Staples in May last year, but we were planning to have it in the budget for September and we saw some needs after all the things with the pandemic, so it made it into the budget for this year, so we will have some extra mental health supports and supports for kids in general.”
