The Prince Albert Catholic School Division continues to adapt to what the COVID-19 pandemic means. Their regular meeting on Monday, May 25 saw more trustees in the building and some other adaptions to the format.
Director of education Lorel Trumier explained that the division took precautions but invited other trustees to the Catholic Education Centre for the meeting. They were adhering to social distancing rules and other parts of the Public Health Order.
“So we had four of the five members plus myself in one room and then we had our executive secretary sitting in another room in another part of the building,” she explained.
“I think you know as COVID continues we will just get smarter about how we can manage the pieces and we are always learning new strategies and trying to make things work. I think that it is good that we are learning and we are doing this all together in our world around us because it sure helps when we are trying to be cautious with our members that are involved in our school division,” she said.
There were only a few minor issues with teleconferencing but the meeting ran smoothly.
May was Catholic Education Month and the division celebrated it remotely, with a retirement tea normally scheduled for early June the division is taking the same strategy.
“We usually generally have what we call a retirement tea annually to acknowledge the retirees of our school division, whether they are teachers or support staff or members of our school division,” Trumier said.
The Retirement Tea Celebration is traditionally at St. Joseph’s Church instead it will be a virtual celebration with staff who chose to participate.
“What we do annually is we talk to the retirees, some people like to ride away in the sunset and not have any acknowledgement and some really have worked to celebrate with their peers and want to celebrate with their peers about working with them in their career. So it’s always a joyous time in retirement so that each of our retirees have time to enjoy some recognition and at this point we have a retirement celebration lined up for June 3,” Trumier said.
This year there is seven staff total retiring with four teachers, two caretakers and one member of the support staff completing their time in the division.
“We are going to do our best and acknowledge the people that we care about in that way and it will be interesting to see how we can do it but it is always fun,” Trumier said.
They will be following the recommendations of the Chief Medical Officer and gathering in the Teams application on Microsoft Office 365. All staff will receive the traditional gift of a clock on behalf of the board of education. Administration asked a board representative or Chair Susanne Stubbs to speak and also invited all board members to join the event through Teams. One of the retirees will also be recognized for a recent award.
“It’s exciting Louise Kerzinger is a recent recipient of the Catholic Education Service Award and we generally do a recognition of that service in our Parish church that she belongs to and we are not able to do that so this will be a nice way to acknowledge her efforts as a recipient and obviously as a long-serving teacher in our school division.”
