Although you may still see “Pembina Hills Public Schools” on signage for a time, the division is embracing its new legal name of the “Pembina Hills School Division” and will begin using it in the future.
During their Sept. 11 meeting in Barrhead, trustees passed a motion to transition from the old communication name of Pembina Hills Public Schools (PHPS) to the new legal name of the Pembina Hills School Division.
The motion stated the change would be made immediately on legal documents, financial statements, contract templates and the like, but the division will only transition to the new name on division equipment as it is replaced.
This was done in accordance with the ministerial order issued Aug. 15 by education minister Adriana LaGrange, which changed the legal name of all Alberta school boards to the uniform “XX School Division.”
On Jan. 1, 1995, Pembina Hills Regional Division No. 7 was established from the amalgamation of the County of Barrhead No. 11 school district, the Westlock School Division No. 37 and Swan Hills School District No. 5109.
It had been known simply as the Pembina Hills Regional Division No. 7 until 2015, when the school board of the day discussed adopting a new name to be used for communication purposes.
“Back then, the discussion was that our legal name did not really have school in it, so it was confusing,” said Mabel Wang, who is taking over as secretary-treasurer from Tracy Meunier.
Westlock North trustee Jackie Comeau added that it had been rumoured the province was going to remove numbers from the names of school divisions.
Noting that the original problem of the division’s name lacking the word “school” was now irrelevant, board chair Jennifer Tuininga asked the trustees if they should keep the “communication name” or if they should just switch everything over to the new legal name.
While some things definitely had to be switched over immediately, like the name used on legal documents, Tuininga indicated that signs on buildings and buses didn’t have to make the switch.
Finding a new URL that matches the division’s legal name will also be challenging, as will switching over e-mail addresses.
“We certainly aren’t saying ‘Let’s change everything at once,’ but we have to come to some agreement about what is changing and what isn’t changing,” she said.
Barrhead South trustee Kerry McElroy voiced frustration with the name change in light of the recent report issued by the Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances, which suggested that the Alberta government must reduce operating spending by at least $600 million to balance its budget.
“When you look at the overall cost of changing all of the names across the system, it makes no sense. Good grief,” he said.
Westlock South trustee Jackie Carson said she was in favour of continuing to use Pembina Hills Public Schools as the division’s communication name.
“We are a publicly-funded institution, and to have ‘public’ in our name just makes sense,” she said.
“I take a lot of pride in being a public school division. I think having the word ‘public’ in there means something.”
Westlock Town trustee Wendy Scinski, who made the motion to change over to the new legal name, said that while spending a lot of money to change over to the new name didn’t make a lot of sense, she felt that having multiple names was very confusing.
When asked for his input, Supt. David Garbutt said that sending out letters that didn’t have the legal name of Pembina Hills in the letterhead always made him a little uneasy.
Meunier, who was also present, pointed out that to most people, the Pembina Hills division is still just Pembina Hills.
In the end, Scinski’s motion to transition to the new name was passed unanimously.
