Three school board veterans stepped up to lead their divisions this week following October’s civic elections.
Gerry Martins, Joan Crockett and Terry Jewell were elected chairs of the St. Albert Public, Greater St. Albert Catholic and Sturgeon School Division boards (respectively) this week.
This is Martins’ ninth year with the public board and his second stint as chair.
“We’ve had some turnover in trusteeship,” he said, referring to the fact that three of the board’s five members are new, so he decided to put his name forward.
Martins said he hopes the board will work closely with the city and the province to create new schools and school sites.
The board is getting a new school in 2016, he noted, but that school will be full when it opens based on current growth rates – some 300 more students enrolled with the board last year, or a 5.5 per cent jump.
The board also has to press the province to renovate and replace aging portables.
“Some of them have been around for 30 years,” Martins said, “and it is time they be replaced.”
For Crockett, this will be her first time as Catholic board chair and her fourth year with the board.
One of the Catholic board’s main projects this term will be the creation of an education foundation, she said – a charitable organization able to raise funds for the district.
“We’re hoping someone leaves us a million dollars,” she joked.
She also hopes to bring a non-voting student member onto the board to get a student’s perspective on the district. The Edmonton public school board has done so, as have boards in Ontario and New Brunswick.
Jewell is back for his 17th year as chair and roughly his 30th as a trustee with the Sturgeon board.
“I think one of the most important things we can do is to get a good education for our kids,” he said, when asked why he had stuck with this job so long.
His travels in less-opulent parts of the world have convinced him that education was vital to solving the world’s problems.
“No education system, no middle class. No middle class, no life as we understand it,” he said.
The board is currently working on a high-school completion project with the University of Alberta to find out why students stay in school or drop out.
It would also have to address the coming space crunch in Morinville. “We’ve gone from zero to 425 (students) in three years,” he said, and will likely be full in town by 2015.
The board would also have to hold a by-election this March to fill its vacant Alcomdale/Villeneuve seat. They’ve already had a few candidates step forward, Jewell said. “I wish they would’ve done it a month ago.”
The Sturgeon School Division is doing a full review of its transportation policy after a child was left on one of its buses all day.
On Oct. 28, nine-year-old county resident Colby Fennell was en route to Namao School when he fell asleep on the bus and missed his stop.
When he awoke he found that the bus had arrived at the bus driver’s home, said district superintendent MichÄŤle Dick. The boy then spent the rest of the day on the bus, reportedly in -8 C weather, until the bus driver returned.
Namao School principal Vernice Pollmann has met with the affected family and apologized profusely, Dick said.
“That’s got to be a frightening experience for a child.”
The board is taking this very seriously and has ordered a full review of the district’s transportation and absence reporting policies, Dick said.
“It is an expected standard that buses are always checked at the end of a run,” she said. “This young boy should have been found.”
Dick said she will present the results of the review at the Nov. 13 board meeting.
“We’ve never had an incident like this in our school jurisdiction,” she said, adding that she’s been with the district for six years.
The boy’s family could not be reached for comment.
