Prairie Rose meeting address budget numbers, students’ feelings and education results

With the holidays passed, and students back in class, the Prairie Rose Public School Board settled in on January 10th for their first school board meeting of the year.

Director of Maintenance Operations Darrell Drefs presented the Building Operations Accountability Report. In total, the division spent $725,362 on Infrastructure Maintenance and Renewal projects through the 2021-2022 year, and operations and maintenance expenses for the 2022-2023 school year are estimated at $7,075,385 with a projected deficit of $1,109,799.

In addition, Manager of Human Resources Tammy Toews presented the employee portion of the Wellness Accountability Report, which detailed newly introduced strategies to promote wellness, and strategies to increase staff capacity to access available health benefits.

“We want to continue maintaining our focus obviously on mental health. We want to keep supporting our schoolwork security, those healthy workplace cultures,” said Toews.

School psychologist Greg Godard presented information related to student wellness, where it has been found that there’s an overarching increase in mental health concern among children, though this is not specific to the school division.

“We are seeing in general media-reported statistics of increases in anxiety and a little bit of interest in depression, though no increase in suicide (numbers),” said Godard. “Suicide is what’s called a lagging indicator... If people are really depressed, really anxious, struggling to the point of that hopelessness, suicide actually is something that usually happens a little bit later.”

There’s a noted decrease in stress tolerance from students, as well as increases in anxiety, which Godard attributes possibly to an upward trend in the amount of screen time children see every day, but a decrease in depression.

The 2021-2022 Annual Education Results Report showed that Prairie Rose results were very strong across the board, despite challenges faced by students, parents and staff in recent years due to public health restrictions.

A field trip for the Dave Rozdeba South Alberta Flight academy was approved. The trip, to Washington, DC, will take place from June 29 - July 4, 2023. Approximately 24 students will be participating.

Principal Lora Fletcher-Wilson, alongside grade 8 student representative Cade Wilson, gave a presentation on the activities of Warren Peers School in Acadia Valley.

“It would be way more than the allotted time if I get to share everything that we would do in our school,” noted Fletcher-Wilson. Highlights of the presentation included a look into an opportunity to take part in the Alberta Skills Exploration program, where students were challenged to take part in problem-solving activities after receiving a box of tools and supplies.

“Students were given the challenge of improving food production, distribution, packaging, or reducing waste and inequality in food. They then had to empathize with another student and design a prototype that would help solve the other student’s concerns. Finally, the group chose one prototype that they would all build together at the skills exploration virtual date on December 6th. With the help and donations of two amazing parents, the students used the tools and materials we have been given to build the prototypes. It was a great day,” explained Fletcher-Wilson.