St. Albert parents won't notice much of a change this fall when the city's public and separate school boards swap hats, apart from some new names on their letterhead, says the board chairs. The province proclaimed the St.
St. Albert parents won't notice much of a change this fall when the city's public and separate school boards swap hats, apart from some new names on their letterhead, says the board chairs.
The province proclaimed the St. Albert and Sturgeon Valley School Districts Establishment Act into law on June 1.
The law changes the Greater St. Albert Catholic School district into the separate school board in St. Albert and Morinville as of July 1. It is currently the public board in those regions.
Replacing it as the public board in Morinville and St. Albert are the Sturgeon School Division and St. Albert Protestant Schools, respectively. The Catholic board will hand over Morinville's Georges P. Vanier Elementary School to Sturgeon as a result.
The law means that the Protestant board will have to change its name, said Protestant board chair Joan Trettler. "There won't be any 'Protestant.' It'll just be 'St. Albert Public School District.'" The board expects to spend several hundred thousand dollars updating their signs and documentation as a result.
St. Albert Catholic will technically be known as the Greater St. Albert Roman Catholic Separate School District, noted Catholic board chair Lauri-Ann Turnbull in an email, but plans to stick with its old name for communication purposes.
Other than that, Trettler said, not much else will change. "We don't see it affecting the quality of education we provide at all."
Rights shift
As they are meant to protect religious (and typically Catholic) minorities, separate school boards in Alberta have legal powers that public boards do not, including the right to exist, elect trustees and levy taxes.
This board swap technically transfers those powers to the Catholic board from the Protestant one.
The Protestant board lobbied then-education minister Thomas Lukaszuk to let them keep the powers as a public board. He refused, saying in a May 4 letter to the board that those powers were meant to protect minorities. "The denominational majority cannot claim those same rights," he wrote.
The district particularly wanted to keep its right to exist, Trettler said, as that would protect it from future mergers with the Edmonton school district. That's not an immediate threat, she said, but it could happen in the future.
The Catholic board did not expect to do anything different with its new powers, Turnbull said. "It is business as usual for the board."
The swap also means that non-Catholics will be able to vote for and run in elections for the Protestant board — those elections are currently open to just Protestants. Conversely, only Catholics will be able to participate in Catholic board elections — right now, anyone who isn't Protestant can take part.
That worried non-Catholic parents at last week's meeting at Vanier. The district was very inclusive now, they asked, but would it become more Catholic in the future with an all-Catholic board?
Not in the near future, replied Catholic superintendent David Keohane. "We've said this several times: nothing will change in Morinville."
So long as parents want it, he continued, the Catholic board would continue to be as open and inclusive as it is now. Any future changes would be up to voters and trustees, he admitted. "That's the public agenda."
The board has no plans to change its religious programming, Turnbull said in an email, and will continue to welcome families of all faiths.
"Trustees must represent all the families who attend and access our school programs," she said, and parents will continue to have a voice through them.
Trettler laughed when asked if the Protestant board would become less Protestant when it became the public board.
"I think there will be very little change for us." The change could, however, encourage more people to run in the next board election.
