Across Westlock County, public schools are opening their doors to new students and opportunities.
Busby School has just finished a summer of renovations, adding an access lift and washroom for special needs students and expanding the school’s lobby.
“The school entry looks just fantastic,” said incoming principal Pauline Gilmour. “We have a lot more room in the lobby for parents and kids to gather too.”
She noted enrolment was up slightly from last year, with an estimated 103 students attending this year.
Another new development at Busby school is an addition of a “B-Prep” program, a pre-school class for kids aged three to four years old in partnership with Alberta Early Education.
The program not only prepares young kids for school but also helps catch speech impediments and other potential learning issues and coaches students through them.
Gilmour noted much of her role as incoming principal would be to listen to staff about their needs and learn from them.
“We have some really excellent staff with specialized experience,” she said. “It’s a good opportunity for us to deepen our knowledge in how we can help students with all sorts of needs.”
She isn’t planning any dramatic changes to the school’s day-to-day operations, noting she’s still learning how her staff do things. She highlighted the school’s strong literacy and numeracy programs as areas she would push to expand on, as well as working with students reading comprehension and encouraging critical thinking.
All that ties into the new Grade K to 4 curriculum coming down the pipe from the province. Gilmour noted her staff were getting time to familiarize themselves with the new concepts before they had to start explaining them.
“Implementation will be staggered,” she said. “That’s going to be a big learning curve for staff, so that’s something were are going to focusing on.”
The school is welcoming their kids back with a bang. Within the first month the Grades 4 to 6 classes will be off to Camp Encounter for a weekend of rock climbing, camping and other outdoor activities.
A school-wide Back to School Barbecue is slated for Sept. 20 to help the students, staff and parents get to know each other.
New staff at PNCS
From Busby to Dapp, incoming PNCS principal Raime Drake said she was eager to get going with her new school and its 205 students.
“I’m really excited for this school year,” she said. “We set the stage as a division on Wednesday and then had an opportunity to meet on Thursday to go over our goals and prepare for the year ahead.”
In addition to their incoming kindergarten students, the school has hired three new teachers and a program assistant to help them along.
Like her counterpart taking over her old school in Busby, Drake said she’s keeping her eyes and ears open while she learns her way around the school.
“PNCS has lots of great things happening for kids and for me it will be about building relationships with students, parents, staff, and community members,” she said.
“My main goal is ensuring that we are a fully inclusive school where every student belongs.”
In addition to preparing for the upcoming curriculum changes and how students access it, PNCS is working towards enhancing their Career and Technology Foundation opportunities and expanding on the school’s instruction of the essential literacy and numeracy components of education.
However, her top priority is ensuring all students feel welcome and included in their school.
“Our motto is ‘United We Achieve Excellence’ and we are always finding ways to ensure that all of our students have opportunities to be successful in all aspects of their lives … academically, physically and social-emotionally,” she said.
“We have an incredible staff who love what they do and model what it means to be a lifelong learner.”
PNCS will kick off their school year with a welcome back assembly on day one and will follow up with an open house for parents on Sept. 13.
Eleanor Hall School principal Nadine Marchand was unavailable for an interview as of press time.
