Ashlea Hodgson spent last week hitting the books in summer school — except her homework was a hike, and her classroom was the side of a mountain.
“It was a good walk,” Hodgson said of the eight-hour trek up Allstones Peak near Nordegg, Alta., although she was pretty tired afterwards.
Hodgson is one of the more than 900 St. Albert-area students enrolled in the St. Albert Public Summer School program this month at Bellerose. The program started July 4.
The program is one of the many educational opportunities open to St. Albert students this summer. Greater St. Albert Catholic is offering online high-school classes. GSACRD and St. Albert Public also run the Super School Summer School at W.D. Cuts, where Grade 1 to 8 students can carve skateboards, bake treats, or brush up on their sports and academics.
Bellerose and Paul Kane have run separate summer schools for many years, said St. Albert Public Summer School co-principal Randy Kozak. This year, board officials switched to a single, district-wide summer school program to save money and bring the two school communities together. The program will switch between Bellerose and Paul Kane every two years, starting with Bellerose.
Kozak said this year’s summer school features some 51 teachers, 907 students, and 12 half- or full-day courses.
Outdoor adventures
One of those courses is the outdoor adventure program — a 10-day course that lets students earn credits in phys-ed, career and life management (CALM), and outdoor education. Teacher Jeff Beaton said this is the first time the program has run in two years, as it had been suspended due to the pandemic, and the first time it will ever be run by district staff (past classes were run by HeLa Ventures).
Beaton said the course sees students spend Mondays and Friday indoors at Bellerose, and Tuesdays to Thursdays outdoors at places such as Allstones Peak, where they learn camping, cooking, and wilderness etiquette.
“We meet them on Day One and they’re camping on Day Two,” he said, adding the class will paddle 20 kilometres in Lakeland Provincial Park later this month.
Hodgson, who enters Grade 10 at Bellerose this fall, said she signed up for this course to get a head start on high school and have some fun travelling, adding she has met many new friends through it.
Indoor studies
Incoming Grade 10 student Abol Tarbine is one of the roughly 350 students enrolled in the school’s Phys-ed 10/CALM 20 combo class — an all-day course that lets students complete these mandatory classes in just two weeks.
“I just wanted to get it over with,” he said, adding he is excited to start on the phys-ed part of the class later this month.
Kozak said the school’s phys-ed courses were pretty popular this year, especially among students who didn’t want to have to shower and change clothes in between classes. There was also a lot of interest in courses with diploma exams, as after this summer those exams will go back to accounting for 30 per cent of a course’s grade instead of 10.
Incoming Grade 12 student Julia Kasowski said she is taking Social 30 this summer to free up space in her schedule for other activities.
“It goes really fast,” she said of the course, as the material is compressed into three weeks.
“Definitely not a snooze-fest.”
Summer school compresses the typical 125-hour class into 80, Kozak said.
“A day in summer school is about a week of [regular] classes,” he said, and involves up to two hours of homework a day.
“It’s not for the weak of heart.”
Courses at the St. Albert Public Summer School run from July 4 to 29. Diploma exams are from Aug. 2 to 10. Call 780-460-8490 for details.
