Last week’s announcement that the Sturgeon School Division will partner with Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division to offer a secular education option in Morinville is proof of the axiom credited to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Sturgeon School Division will teach as many as 272 kindergarten to Grade 12 Morinville children come September in a non-faith-based curriculum, the first of its kind for the town. It is not a complete victory, as former Morinville resident and secular school proponent Donna Hunter has noted, as parents will not as yet be able to vote for Sturgeon School Division trustees. But considering how far this fight has come in such a short period of time, the fact any option will be available at all for next year is nothing short of astounding.
It was difficult to foresee back in December of 2010 that anything would come of the request by two families in Morinville to the Catholic board to offer a secular education program. To that date, unflinchingly and unquestioningly, no one had either thought or dared to ask otherwise. It was just an accepted fact that the public board in Morinville was the Catholic board and that it was the only board in town. It took until seven months ago for someone to even bother questioning why that was.
Greater St. Albert Catholic is branding this development as a compromise, but inserting the word adjective “grudging” seems appropriate. Keep in mind that, when superintendent David Keohane and the board responded to the parents’ request, they were effectively told the board would not accommodate their request. They offered a list of alternatives but most of them involved busing students to schools in Sturgeon or St. Albert or establishing a separate or charter school within Morinville. It was not until Education Minister Dave Hancock became involved and asked the board to a meeting that it became clear the question was not whether or not Greater St. Albert Catholic had to provide a secular option, but what that option would look like.
This story made national headlines, right up to last week’s announcement. It was a quirk in the national fabric that non-Catholic parents had no choice but to send their students to Catholic schools. Yet our little curiosity here and in Morinville, where the Catholic district is the public district, has created its share of problems because of the district’s inability to deal with situations such as this and transgendered substitute teacher Jan Buterman. Similar problems will continue to pop up so long as the Catholic board is left in charge of public education. Sadly, given the Protestant board’s intractability in taking over as the public district because of the constitutional protection it receives, it is likely this warped arrangement will continue to be the norm.
But for now Greater St. Albert Catholic and the Sturgeon School Division should be applauded for working together to give families in Morinville a choice in their education. Hunter and the other families who stood alongside her deserve the thanks of the community for standing their ground. It might not be perfect, but given the track record of public education in St. Albert and the surrounding area, very little is.
