Rural students encouraged to use the Hat’s outreach school

Commentato/Courier Photo by Justin Seward Beyond Walls Outreach School Tim Bloomfield spoke to PRSD's board of trustees on Jan.8.

By Justin Seward

Commentator/Courier

The Hat’s Beyond Walls Out Reach School’s principal Tim Bloomfield made a visit to the Prairie Rose School Division’s board meeting on Jan. 8 to discuss opportunities for the school division’s students to attend the outreach school.
The school’s focus is to provide educational program for those students that are looking for a non traditional school education, experiencing time table conflict, upgrading high school courses, retaking previous unsuccessful courses and elite athletes who are making time for training.
Adult and high school students walk through the school’s doors to finish courses and are never put on a waiting list and start right away.
Bloomfield outlined how their school programming works in two different categories.
One was the high school programming where the same courses are taught to kids as if they were sitting in a secondary school classroom through long distance learning.
“There’s no classes for our kids to attend at our school but there’s always teachers in our building with a high level of expertise,” he said.
“It’s drop-in, come and go store front school. They can come in and get help whenever they want. Sometimes getting help whenever they want is 10 p.m. at night.”
Other courses offered include Forensic Science which no other schools offers, a first aid certification is offered to PRSD students at no costs for four to five times a year, drivers training through AMA’s Driver’s Edge and psychology courses.
A dual credit in health care aid and a construction safety, CSTS (Construction Safety Training System) are also available.
“We are continuous enrollment,” said Bloomfield.
“We enroll kids every day. Kids finish courses everyday. For us, our kids keep working through the whole school year. They just don’t have that mind set of the course has to be done in June or it’s got be done in January.”
The school also offers the opportunity for students in PRSD and Medicine Hat school districts to write the five diploma (Math, Science, Social Studies, English and French).
If a diploma is not written at the scheduled time, then the outreach school will assist in accommodating another time that a high school can not.
This year’s focus includes two main goals where the school will be doing a lot of their own assessments and Rural Futures Institutes.
More information can be found by calling the school at (403) 526-4156 or going to http://www.beyondwalls.ca.