Regardless of the outcome of Monday’s provincial election, Morinville parents will have to wait weeks to find which school in the community is changing hands as part of the re-alignment of local school boards.
In the weeks leading up to this writ drop, the legislature passed new legislation that flips the community’s school boards: Turning the St. Albert Catholic board into a separate school board, lining it up with other Catholic boards in the province and making the Sturgeon school division the public system.
The legislation was used to address the issue of secular education in Morinville, where the Catholic board currently runs all four community schools.
Parents wanting a complete secular education first raised the issue about 18 months ago and initially a small school was opened with a modular building to house a few classes. The Sturgeon school division operated that school this past year under a contract with the Catholic board, but the new legislation gives parents full voting rights in the Sturgeon division.
Current Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk remains in his position until a new cabinet is sworn in and in the event of a Progressive Conservative government he could stay in the position, but he could also be shuffled into a different position.
Lukaszuk met with parents in the community just before the election to hear their concerns about which school might be moved.
In the event the Wildrose party forms government, which current polls suggest is a real possibility, it would be up to that party to decide what to do with the situation.
Amanda Krumins a spokesperson for Alberta Education, said the decision is on hold until a new minister is in place.
“We can’t really say exactly when the decisions will be made.”
Following Monday’s vote, there will be a 10-day period before the chief returning officer for the province proclaims the results, making them official.
Krumins said cabinet has to meet to proclaim the legislation and when the new cabinet meets is in the hands of whoever the new premier might be.
“The premier, whoever it happens to be, will have to make their cabinet decisions.”
Local Wildrose candidate Link Byfield said his party is fully aware of the concern and won’t keep parents waiting any longer than necessary.
“We would deal with this with as much speed as we possibly could, because the parents, teachers and students are left hanging.”
The Wildrose party voted in favour of the legislation in the legislature and Byfield said there are no issues with it in the party.
“They have nothing against the bill itself and they do understand that is urgent.”
He said it is hard to put an exact timeline on how long it would take a Wildrose government to make a decision, because he doesn’t know how far the government has taken the issue.
He said he would want to be sure the right people had been talked to about the decisions and that the government had properly weighed all the potential consequences.
“You need to have an awful lot of consultations with people.”
He said there are longer-term issues about how many schools in the community should be devoted to each system and where potential new schools should go, but in terms of getting one school for the public system that should be a fairly straightforward decision.
“I would be hopeful that we would have things in place by September.”
