Byemoor braces for school changes — principal LES STULBERG Independent reporter Change was in the air as Byemoor-area residents met with the Clearview School Division last Tuesday night to discuss the viability of the small-town school. Clearview’s first in a series of “community consultation meetings” came just five days after a provincial budget that didn’t do any favours on the education front. “There will need to be changes,” said Byemoor principal Corey van Zandbergen, who didn’t say how those cuts would be manifested. Van Zandbergen said he needed more time to analyze the implications of the provincial budget, and how those cuts would impact each school. All of the Clearview trustees, as well as four members of the administration, attended the Byemoor meeting. Clearview superintendent John Bailey said the board has
“much less money” to spend in the 2013-14 school year. To avoid another deficit, about $1 million will need to be trimmed from the budget, he said. Plus, the division is poised to receive almost $700,000 less from the province. In a slide presentation, Clearview said staffing reductions are inevitable and must be borne equitably by all schools and other operations. Seventy-five per cent of the division budget goes to staff, while 90 per cent of school budgets go to staff. Byemoor School has about $50,000 less to spend for the next school year. Van Zandbergen proposed Byemoor be a virtual school, where home-schooled students could register, either in a blended program or remain completely home-schooled, but in contact with school resources. Such a proposal could potentially increase revenue, he said.
Byemoor’s enrolment is projected to increase by three students next year, which could help ease budget cuts. Board chair Ken Checkel reassured a crowd of about 50 that all schools in the division would remain open for 2013-14 and grade configurations would remain the same. He said the Class Size Initiative funding would come to the schools in a new formula. The Small Schools by Necessity funding would remain the same. A four-day school week was discussed. It would save transportation costs, but not necessarily help individual school budgets, trustees told the crowd. A resident asked if a transportation agreement had been reached with the Catholic school board on co-operative busing to save money. Bailey said that discussion is ongoing. The next community consultation meeting is scheduled for tonight at Donalda. The meetings continue throughout the district in the next couple of months.
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March 20, 2013
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GOLDEN BOYS — The Stettler Storm ham it up after winning the provincial bantam A hockey championship on home ice Sunday. For details, see pages B1 and B2.
Clearview gives failing grade to Fraser Institute report card RICHARD FROESE Independent reporter Just one elementary school in the immediate Stettler region was given the grade in the annual report of Alberta elementary schools produced by the Fraser Institute. For Grade 6 marks for 2011-12, Erskine School was tied for 261 out of 659 schools, with a mark of 6.6. With 17 students, the school made the minimum 15 students required to qualify for the report. “We do not give much credence to this kind of reporting done by the Fraser Institute,” said Clearview superintendent John Bailey. “I think all of our schools do excellent work for the students.” Listed in the greater Stettler area: Forestburg School ranked 371 with a score of 5.9. Alix Central School ranked 437 with 5.4. Coronation School ranked 466 with 5.2. Delburne Centralized School ranked 480 with 5.1. Those results are based on average test marks for Grade 3 language arts and math and for Grade 6 language arts, math, science and social studies. “The assessment criteria they use to rank schools, and imply that one school is better than another, is far
too narrow,” Bailey said. “They look only at results on single tests and as can be plainly seen, they also make a determination based upon income level. “A far-more influential indicator than average family income is the education level of a child’s mother, but they do not use that.” Not all provincial elementary schools are included in the ranking. In some school districts that operate middle schools, the elementary schools might not enrol students in Grade 6, stated the report. The exclusion of a school from the report card should in no way be construed as a judgment of the school’s ineffectiveness, the Fraser Institute report said.
Clearview strongly considers Alberta Education’s “Accountability Pillar,” which assesses the efficiencies of schools divisions in a broader scope and effectively in 16 areas, he said. “Of course, it still does not tell the whole story about all of the work going on in our schools,” Bailey said. “Clearview has work to do to improve results in the provincial achievement test excellence category and in the high school diploma acceptable and excellence categories.” Since he presented that information last fall, Clearview has set action plans that are in progress to help improve those results, Bailey said.
RICHARD FROESE/Independent reporter
RIDE ON — Kub Kar Rally champions from Stettler include Tyson Yeomans (left), Ryley Mappin and David Butterwick. Cody Derijch was also among the winners.
High school gains national honours LES STULBERG Independent reporter These are exciting times for a pilot project at William E. Hay Composite High School in Stettler. National recognition has created a proud moment for educators and students at the school. The school’s High School Flexibility Enhancement Pilot Project received honourable mention in the Ken Spencer Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. It was among the 15 honourees from the 73 applicants. “I am incredibly proud any time any of our schools gets recognized for their good work,” said Clearview School Division superintendent John Bailey. The excitement had been two-fold. Myranda Shepherd, a vice-principal at William E. Hay, said a team of teachers and students from the school was the first international delegation to be invited to Washington, D.C., for the National Association of Secondary School Principals conference. “It was a humbling experience,” she said. “Our staff perhaps doesn’t fully understand how phenomenal they are and how innovative the work is they do.” Seven teachers and three students from Stettler attended the four-day conference, where they presented a 90-minute showcase of the “flex” project. The delegation headed by principal Norb Baharally and vice-principal Shepherd, included teachers Joe Thibeau, Janine Klevgaard, Audra Lotoski, Dianne Enyedy and Alicia Kneeland. Also participating were Grade 11 students Aaryn Lynham and Morgan Sorensen and Grade 12 student Claire Aspenes. They were selected from 20 students in an application process. The Stettler school is one of 16 schools in school divisions across Alberta involved in the three-year pilot project.
This is the final year of the project, but Bailey said the provincial education department is pleased enough with the results that it has extended and expanded the project to include more school divisions next year. Shepherd was pleased with the extension on the successful program. “There is no way we could remove the program now — it would be going backwards for us,” she said. The program was designed so students are unable to go unnoticed and fall between the cracks. The project grants schools the freedom to remove the Carnegie Unit — a standardized time requirement for the attainment of high school credits. “There was an assumption that students learn at the same rate,” Shepherd said. Educators are provided with the latitude to redesign the school timetable to rethink and personalize their students’ high school experience. Teacher Advisors (TAs) are allocated regular class time each week to interact with students on a completely different level. Students have flex time — a block of time created to allow students the opportunity to determine their area of greatest need and be able to access any teacher in the school. Staff has been able to show with statistics the positive impacts education can have on students with the removal of the Carnegie Unit. Student personalization was dramatically increased and students are more engaged, largely due to the fact that there are more one-on-one conversations happening, say those involved in the project. “It increases student accountability,” Shepherd said. She said the popularity of the pilot project has seen numerous visits by other schools to William E. Hay. On average, there are at least two visits per month from other “school teams,” Shepherd said.
Readers can also find the Stettler Independent at stettlerindependent.com