Prairie Rose school board sorts out administrative duties

Southern Alberta Newspapers Photo by Anna Smith. NEW PLAN: Prairie Rose Public Schools board of trustees meet in Dunmore for the first board meeting of the new school year.

By Anna Smith
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The first Prairie Rose Public Schools public board meeting for the 2024-2025 school year was held Sept. 10, with some administrative decisions to be made.

Lois Bedwell will be reprising her role as board chair, with Patty Rooks serving as vice-chair. The representative for the Alberta School Boards Association is Shauna VanderSpruit, with Nancy Haraga as an alternate, and Cathy Hogg will represent on the Public School Boards Association with Pam Cursons as the alternate.

Cursons will also be representing the board with the Teachers Employer Bargaining Association, and Rooks will attend the Rural Caucus of Alberta for the division.

This is the final year of the current three-year education plan. As such, the designers will be beginning to hold engagement sessions with various groups in order to gather feedback for the following education plan.

The new plan will be presented at the division-wide professional development day in May.

It was noted during the meeting that parents and teachers alike have responded positively to the cellphone plan put in place following the Ministerial Order mandating restrictions for cellphone and social media use in schools. The first steps for the official policy were shared at the meeting.

Superintendent Reagan Weeks said things were going well in regards to the policy, and that they expected things to be in place for the Jan. 1, 2025 full implementation deadline.