Arne Petryshen
On Tuesday, a story about a Catholic school board in Edmonton banning international travel made headlines around the country. The topic came up at the School District 5 meeting on Dec. 8.
“We take our lead from the British Columbia Ministry (of Education), and we went through and checked that day, as soon as that information came out.
“Here’s that information from the Ministry: ‘The Ministry is not contemplating a provincial directive to boards of education on this matter.’”
Hauptman said the board decided after hearing that that it would not take any action.
“But we’ll review it in January to see if there’s any further information on things,” she said.
Hauptman said the board could make the decision on its own if it wanted to, but typically takes direction from the Ministry on issues like this.
“They look to see is the Ministry concerned about this? And the province is not concerned at this time, from what they’ve said in terms of this email,” she said.
“We asked them if they had any plans for banning travel, and they said ‘no’.”
Hauptman said there are a couple of trips scheduled, including a band trip to Disneyland and another trip to Nicaragua.
She said the story of school boards cancelling international travel was likely made bigger than it needed to be.
“It was one Catholic school board that made that decision and for some reason it travelled everywhere,” she added.