New programming and a new school year will be the focus when trustees from the Prince Albert Catholic School Division make their School Community Council (SCC) reports for September.
Along with welcoming students, the new report will have a focus on some new programming including new options introduced at Ecole St. Mary High School.
“We’re really blessed to have School Community Council members, parents in our community that are involved in their schools,” director of education Lorel Trumier said.
“We wanted to make sure that our board does have a good report that would be going out to our families and parents that are involved in the SCC,” Trumier said.
Trumier said opportunities for student and parent engagement was the main focus in the first report of the year. The goal is to help both groups understand just how many opportunities and extracurricular activities are out there.
High Performance Athletics, and Performing Arts Program are among those highlighted at Ecole St. Mary.
Trumier said the athletics program is already being well received. She attended the Ecole St. Mary volleyball tournament last weekend and said many parents approached her to voice their appreciation.
“Right now, it’s the season of volleyball and they’re saying their kids are loving that opportunity to see the skill development they want and still achieve curricular outcomes in the process,” she explained.
The program provides a schedule option for students where they get a half day of athletics or performing arts.
“When you’re really interested and motivated by that athletics and high skill levels and competition, these students thrive in those areas,” Trumier said.
“We’re going to see the same thing in the performing arts as well, so we are really pumped about that kind of opportunity for our students,” she added.
This was part of the new program delivery model at Ecole St. Mary that was announced in June.
“There’s no cost to parents. That’s the most critical part there,” Trumier said. “There isn’t an extra fee that’s required. It’s going to be part of our programming that we provide, and students who love that, whether it’s performing arts or the athletics, there’s different opportunities for each of them to have special consideration to their timetables and programming options.”
Monday’s meeting agenda was light after the board front-loaded many items into their Aug. 21 meeting due of the fast approaching first week of school.
“Our priority is to have our students enrolled and ensuring that our programming is started and starts off on the right foot,” Trumier said.
“We had prepared it with that in mind that we would want it on all of the other items and make sure that we had that in place.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
