CTR schools present before Wheatland County council

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

eemer Schools presented before county council during the Nov. 19 Public Presentation Committee Meeting.

The purpose of the presentation was to inform and discuss the mission of the school board with the county, as well as to answer any questions councillors may have regarding the educational division. 

Christ the Redeemer School Division consists of 17 schools across Brooks, Canmore, Drumheller, High River, Okotoks, Oyen, and Strathmore, occupied by over 10,000 students between both in-person and at-home learning options. 

 “Our division priorities, obviously our Catholic faith first, our academic excellence is always at the top as well, and healthy schools,” said Harry Salm, speaking on behalf of CTR schools.

The presentation given before council indicated according to survey results collected by the division, parents, teachers and students trend towards demonstration of confidence in the school division to provide safe and caring environments conducive to student learning.

“We do actually invest quite heavily in our academic excellence … when you look at publicly-funded school divisions, we would probably be at or near the top provincially – so our graduation rates, our diploma exams, our achievement,” added Andrea Holowka, superintendent of schools for the CTR division. 

Holowka explained the Board of Trustees sets the priorities for the school division on an annual basis, which becomes foundational to board and school operations. 

“There is quite a narrative provincially about teachers being overloaded and that there are challenges within classrooms with complexity and so on, but that does not really affect us in our motivation to continue to provide that strong academic support in a Catholic environment in the education plan,” she said. “I would say our schools that serve Strathmore and the surrounding county really do provide a very strong basis of learning and there is a lot of assurance in the community about what we provide.”

The delegation, as part of their presentation, provided to the county a snapshot of survey statistics which included numbers for Sacred Heart Academy and Holy Cross Collegiate. 

These survey results indicated student engagement, citizenship, education quality, parental involvement, and student achievement, among a host of other statistics, to be above provincial averages almost across the board. 

The full presentation which was made available to the county is publicly available via the Nov. 19 Public Presentation Committee meeting agenda on the county website.

Following the presentation, county councillors voted to accept the presentation as information.