NLSD holding community engagement session

The Northern Lights School Division is looking for some public input as it prepares its three-year strategic plan for future projects. The school board is hosting a community engagement session tonight at J. A. Williams High School in hopes of finding out what the public thinks should be a priority for education-related initiatives in the region.

Three-year strategic plans are put together by every school division in the province and presented to Alberta Education. Government department officials use the plans to determine where and how to allocate provincial funding. Arlene Hrynyk, chairperson of the NLSD board of trustees, said it’ s important to hear from as many people as possible when drafting these strategic plans.

“Everybody has a stake in education, and we don’ t want people to become engaged just when there’ s an issue. We want them to assist in the overall development for what it’ s going to look like for their children and grandchildren going forward.”

Division members are looking for any and all ideas - there aren’ t any specific initiatives or issues that they want people to focus on. Hrynyk hopes that members of the public will provide a variety of ideas to the board, and maybe some common themes will emerge.

“You can’ t go into a planning process with preconceived ideas of what you want to collect, we just ultimately want to ensure that our communities are heard. We want to ensure they have an opportunity to be engaged in the decision in education,” said Hrynyk.

The community engagement session won’ t be the end of the conversation between the public and the school board on future plans. Board members will come back to show community members how their input affected the plan.

“There’ s always the challenge of how you incorporate that,” said Hrynyk. “At some point we’ ll come back to them and show them how we’ ve incorporated their voice into our overall plan.”

The three-year strategic plan will be submitted to Alberta Education this summer.