Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) and Lakeland Catholic School District (LCSD) only have to make minor adjustments to their legal names to follow new provincial mandates.
While LCSD changed from Lakeland Roman Catholic Separate School District No. 150 to Lakeland Roman Catholic Separate School Division, NLPS only had to remove the number from their legal name Northern Lights School Division No. 69.
New requirements for Alberta school divisions came into effect on Sept. 1 through the Education Act, including the removal of numbers and for districts to become divisions.
During their board meeting on Sept. 18, NLPS passed a motion to request ‘public’ be added in their Northern Lights School Division legal name.
“I think as a public school board, just like any others, you’re always proud of your identity and we’re very proud to celebrate that we’re a public school system,” explained board chair Arlene Hrynyk.
When NLPS changed their branding from Northern Lights School Division to Northern Lights Public Schools in June 2016, they decided against altering their legal name at the time due to the significant price.
“Part of it was we wanted to proudly let the public know what the public school was because public schools accepts all children and celebrates diversity,” stated Hrynyk. “That was important to the board of the day, and one of the things that we did, we were very mindful of it not being a significant cost and we would phase those changes in.”
After attending a meeting with Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange with other board chairs, Hrynyk offered some clarity surrounding the province’s original announcement.
“She stated there was no intention to eliminate ‘public,’ they were just trying to align (the school divisions),” she explained. “She said to us, ‘if all 41 want to go ‘public,’ you folks are welcome to, whatever you would like.’ She readily recognized that they didn’t anticipate that it would be viewed as (negatively) as it was, and the only reason for the removal was because there were only eight with the name ‘public.’”
The Education Amendment Act, which was put in place by the UCP, replaced the NDP’s previous School Act as a means of modernizing Alberta’s education system. The changes came into effect Sept. 1 and were based on previous consultations.
One of the updates had eight of 41 school divisions removing ‘public’ from their legal names.
LaGrange released a statement on her social media pages to address concerns being raised.
“The previous system under the old School Act allowed for unequal treatment of school divisions. Previously, there was a patchwork of different types of school divisions with different powers. With the Education Act, we’re creating a level playing field.”
She continued, “Before the new Education Act, regional divisions required ward and trustee representation from each of the initial entities that formed the regional division when regionalization occurred 25 years ago. Compare this to a non-regional school division that could easily amend trustee representation and ward boundaries to better reflect local circumstances without limitations. The changes we have brought forward by proclaiming the Education Act provides all school boards with this flexibility and eliminates the red tape that was associated with regional division electoral boundaries.”
For LCSD, board chair Diane Bauer said the provincial mandates were “simply a legal change and branding doesn’t have to change.”
“Our branding will stay the same, with the exception of division instead of district,” she continued. “We don’t need to make the change on what our branding looks like right now, but over time, as we change things, we will change those.”
Since the costs for the amendments are the responsibility of school divisions, the province said they could be phased in to minimize the financial burden.
“On your legal documentation, your banking and so forth, that’s going to be immediate, but there was a respect not to be a significant cost impact to make those changes,” explained Hrynyk.
