EDMONTON The Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) is expecting to see its enrolment levels return to pre-pandemic levels, but a new funding model might not be enough to keep up. “We are experiencing growth, 2.7 per cent enrolment growth is what we are forecasting for,” said EPSB Board Chair Trisha Estabrooks. “You can see that, although we are projecting an enrolment of, I think, 104,000 students, we’re in essence only really funded for 99,000 of those students based on the new funding formula.” The new funding framework put in place by the province no longer provides money on a per student model, instead it is based on a three-year average.
EDMONTON Edmonton Public Schools is the latest Alberta school division to publicly state it will not pilot the draft kindergarten to Grade 6 curriculum during the 2021-22 school year. Superintendent Darrel Robertson said the decision was based on the continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Division is offering family choice for in-person and online learning in the first half of the 2021-22 school year, Robertson said in a written statement. To ensure continuity of learning as we look towards a potential return to in-person instruction for the second half of the year, we need to ensure the same curriculum is being used Division-wide for both our online and in-person students.
Posted: Feb 02, 2021 6:00 AM MT | Last Updated: February 2
A public health nurse conducts a contact tracing phone call in Wyoming in this July file photo. As Alberta s COVID-19 daily numbers have fallen over January, contact tracers have been able to keep up with the demand.(Mike Moore/Gillette News Record/The Associated Press)
Alberta Health Services is now following up with all Albertans who test positive for COVID-19, following a recruitment drive for contact tracers this winter. AHS has seen significant improvement in our ability to contact trace positive cases of COVID-19, AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson said in an email statement Monday, adding that it comes due to a lower volume of new cases, the implementation of different notification systems like text and email, as well as active recruitment efforts.