Catholic school board talks upcoming mobile crisis unit
It was a quick in-and-out meeting Tuesday for the Medicine Hat Catholic School Board of Education.
The board first heard from Learning Services associate superintendent Hugh Lehr on a virtual meeting held Monday.
“There were many people on the call — the mayor, school divisions, most agencies in town,” he said. “The ask was for a mobile crisis unit for six months in town.
“I don’t know 100 per cent, but I believe it has been approved and the unit will be three people.”
Medicine Hat Police Service Insp. Brent Secondiak told the News he is in charge of looking into a crisis unit for Medicine Hat and surrounding areas.
“This is something I am looking at but it’s too early to comment on specifics,” Secondiak said. “I can say I have been tasked with looking at a mobile crisis unit.”
When asked if the unit would work just with schools, or with the community at large, Secondiak said it would be the latter.
“It would be for the whole community, but again, we’re still early on in the planning of this,” he said. “It’s exciting to work on.”
Religious education co-ordinator Sandra Richard gave an update on the Growing in Faith, Growing in Christ resource.
“We will be having that one implemented in the fall of this year,” she said. “It will be August when we have the print copy, and then a week later we’ll have the online version.”
Richard says a religious education tool for Kindergarten students will be in the works and hopefully ready for 2022.
The board then congratulated Richard on her coming retirement, which will happen at the end of the school year.
She has been with the board for 34 years.
“Sandra has been a valuable asset to Medicine Hat Catholic,” said board chair Dick Mastel. “We’re very grateful for the time she has spent here with us.
“We will miss you, Sandra.” Registration opened this month for Catholic schools, and everything went well, according to the board.
There are 34 new early learning registrants and a 104 new enrolments for K-12.