INNISFAIL - Chinook’s Edge School Division students interested in accessing summer school opportunities in 2023 will benefit from new data-gathering now underway on how access and instruction might be updated and enhanced, say officials.
Jason Drent, associate superintendent of learning services, made a presentation to trustees at the recent board meeting, outlining plans to consult with principals across the division in coming months.
The end goal is to ensure equality of summer school access for students across the division who are interested in taking classes, including students living on the far boundaries of the division.
“We always want to keep our stakeholders well in the loop in terms of what we are seeing from student need when it comes to high school completion,” Drent told the Albertan. “Summer school plays a key role in ensuring that students have access in particular to courses that maybe they weren’t successful on and that they need another opportunity to gain success.
“We always want to look for flexibilities to design the program for students in summer school and there really is a necessity to ensure that. We are always open to conversations on how we can better meet that need.”
In 2022, summer school was offered face-to-face in Olds, Innisfail and Sylvan Lake.
“We are talking more about how we can ensure that all students have as much equitable access to the summer school program, “ he said. “We truly believe in face-to-face instruction. Our data is pretty clear, in particular coming out of COVID (pandemic), online learning and access to online courses definitely there is a purpose and need for that and it was very timely that we had the expertise and the ability to offer that to students when they couldn’t have the person-to-person learning.
“We are now asking how can we ensure all of our students’ needs are met and what kind of flexibilities might be there for students.”
As part of data-gathering process, Drent will be meeting with principals across the region to gather information on ways to enhance and improve the summer school system.
“The questions that will be asked include, ‘Is there an identified need in some of our communities?’ That’s the research that I’m going to be undertaking as we get into the new year,” he said.
“We are confident that our needs are being met, but there is going to be an opportunity to focus in on that and ask some questions and really find out if there are opportunities to adjust our offerings.”
Drent expects to report his findings back to the board next he spring, he said.
“Do I think we are going to make some adjustments? I do because our principal always come up with innovative comments,” he said. “I know they will provide us with some good ideas.”
Students taking CESD summer school are mostly in high school grades, he said.
“Most of the programs we offer are targeted at Grade 10 and Grade 11,” he said, noting the division is offering a new program for students coming into Grade 10.
“We are really excited to offer that new program that is focused on tech skills in the Google environment,” he said.
