Eggen wants to restore board
Education Minister David Eggen wants to restore an elected school board within the next two years despite attendance rates that remain “unacceptably low” in the Northland School Division.
The school division, based in Peace River and covering a wide area of northern Alberta, primarily serves a First Nation and Métis population. It has been without a locally elected board since 2010, when former education minister Dave Hancock fired 23 local trustees and put an appointed trustee in charge.
“I think it’s an insult to so many people who use these schools that the former government left them in suspension for more than five years,” Eggen said on Tuesday, after the legislature’s public accounts committee met to discuss a March auditor general’s report on the school division.
Restoring the board “is huge,” he said. “It lets people have restoration of faith that we have a partnership on an equal footing between the provincial government and elected trustees to turn things around.”
The school board was disbanded due to poor student performance, abysmal high school completion rates and chronic student absenteeism. In the year Hancock fired the school trustees, the divisionwide student attendance rate was 79 per cent.
It has inched up since then, reaching 82 per cent in 2014-2015, a two per cent increase over the previous school year. About half of the district’s students had a 90 per cent attendance rate last year. But some schools still struggle. Two district schools had average attendance rates in the range of 65 per cent.
Issues such as distance, programming, the legacy of residential schools and socio-economic issues have all contributed to low attendance.
Auditor General Merwan Saher told the public accounts committee the rates are “unacceptably low.”
“Despite (years of) studies, at least one third of the division’s students are chronically absent. That’s 900 students of 2,700,” he said. Chronic absence is defined as attendance of less than 80 per cent.
The school division established an attendance committee last year and all schools must have plans on how to improve it. The division has invested in training and technology to accurately track attendance and methods for following up with students who miss class.
The followup might include automated or teacher phone calls, or home visits. Some schools have implemented in-school incentive programs and attendance celebrations for parents and students, with the motto that “every day counts.”
“The incentives that have worked in our schools are working at making school a positive experience and celebrating the accomplishments of our students. Our attendance initiative is focused on being positive and recognizing students for coming to school,” district superintendent Donna Barrett said.
Colin Kelly, the official trustee for Northland School Division, called it a “remarkable jurisdiction,” despite shortcomings. He hopes for changes and thinks reestablishing a local board would be an important step to re-engage communities in the school system.
“In the absence of a board of trustees, many of our communities and local school committees feel disengaged,” he said, after the public accounts meeting.
“When we’re talking about attendance, literacy, or results, a key component is to have engaged communities … all of our communities say ‘we want our elective representatives back.’ ”