For the second successive year, students in Clearview School Division will return to classes next fall before the Labour Day weekend.
At its regular meeting April 15, Clearview trustees finalized the school calendar for 2010-2011 to meet requirements in consideration of comments from school communities.
“Next year our students will go back to school on September 1, prior to Labour Day,” said Ken Checkel, who chairs the board.
“As a board of trustees, we considered a variety of options, including the feedback received from our school communities in approving the 2010-2011 school year calendar.”
With all partners in education, the task was accomplished.
“Developing school calendars is always an interesting challenge as we try and balance competing demands,” said Superintendent John Bailey.
“For example, one challenge for the 2010-2011 school year is the late date on which Labour Day occurs in September (September 6, 2010) and when this happens it restricts our flexibility to meet instructional time guidelines as set by Alberta Education.”
“The only way we can get the minimum amount of instructional time in while still preserving the other traditional holidays during the year, and finishing by the end of June is to have our students begin classes prior to the Labour Day holiday in September for the 2010-2011 school year”.
The 2010-2011 school year calendar is available on the division’s website at http://www.clearview.ab.ca/yearcalendar.
Clearview hosts provincial Public School Boards Council
Clearview hosted a series of meetings for trustees from 33 public school divisions across the province April 8 to 10.
As a representative group of those 33 school divisions, the PSBC follows the mission of the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta, defined as, “to ensure the continuation and constant improvement of a universally accessible system of public education, which is locally governed, student-centred, and challenging”.
As part of the meetings over the three days, trustees experienced performances by groups of students and toured two schools, Gus Wetter School in Castor and Wm. E. Hay Composite High School in Stettler, where they learned about specific programs in both of those schools designed to help students be more successful.
“Comments from trustees about these school visits and about the performances they enjoyed were very positive,” said Ken Checkel.
“Congratulations to our students and staff who did such fine work representing Clearview Public Schools.”
Lewis G. Hill appointed as the new secretary-treasurer
Clearview Division has appointed Lewis G. Hill to succeed secretary-treasurer Peggy Keith, who retires this summer after serving for over 20 years.
“I am excited to be given the opportunity to use my education and experiences to serve the Clearview School Division in the vital role of secretary-treasurer,” said Hill, who served as vice-president of finance and operations at Prairie Bible Institute, a private, not-for-profit, higher educational institution in Three Hills, Alberta for the past five years.
Hill also served as coordinator for various finance, maintenance and information technology projects.
“We are looking forward to Lewis joining our team,” said Superintendent John Bailey. “He has great experience in managing a diverse portfolio and comes with a very strong financial management background.”
Hill continues his education, working towards the completion of a Bachelors of Commerce at Thompson Rivers Open University in Kamloops.
Next meeting set for May 19
The next regular meeting of the Clearview school board is scheduled for May 19 at 9 a.m. at the school division office in Stettler.