April 24 Horizon School Board of Trustees meeting briefs

Posted on May 4, 2023 by Vauxhall Advance

By Ian Croft

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

news@tabertimes.com

This is a selection of briefs from the April 24 Horizon School Board Meeting.

Animals in School

“The board approved a number of policies,” said Wilco Tymensen, superintendent of Horizon School Division, when discussing the policies of their last board meeting. “They approved the policy on animals and schools. It was just a renewal of the pre-existing policy. The biggest change was it provided some clarity around dogs on school property.”

Two guidelines were also added to this policy stating that experimentation on live animals will be forbidden, and animals will be treated ethically and humanely.

Use of Visual Media in the Classroom

“They also updated the policy on use of physical media in the classroom,” said Tymensen. “Not a lot of significant changes in that one from previous versions.”

Guidelines were added to this policy indicating that teachers are required to use their judgement when showing age-appropriate material, and that teachers and the principal will inform parents when necessary to seek parent/guardian consent. Regulations were also implemented, ensuring that schools follow copyright laws, as well as terms of services, and that any full length movie or documentary needs to be approved by the principal unless it’s material from the Alberta Education resources, or their streaming site.

International Students

“Then they also updated the policy on international students and it more or less provided clarity around registration for international students,” said Tymensen.

Guidelines were added to ensure that the admission of international students is only allowed when the necessary resources are available and that proper insurance is purchased for the student which is funded through their admissions fee. Other adjustments to the regulation included that approval of international students totally rest within the superintendence judgement, as well as some minor cleaning up of the formatting of the regulations.