Just a few weeks ago, on Wednesday, Aug. 27, the Hardisty and District Development Group hosted a town-wide meeting to gauge the interest in pursuing a charter school for the town.
The meeting was very well attended, and from that the Hardisty Community Charter School Association was formed via a second meeting, held Sept. 2.
Blake Moser, who serves as president of the new association, says that the group is working on obtaining the necessary information and approvals, putting everything in place to set up a charter school.
He says the initial meeting gave the group, “a clear consensus that our community wants to further explore and pursue the Charter School path for Hardisty.”
He says the current executive of the association will transition to fill more of a traditional school board position for the day-to-day and year-to-year operation of the charter school, similar to what a public school board will do.
Moser says there is some urgency right now to get as many parents and families as possible to come forward if they are interested and complete a Parent Declaration of interest form.
Those are available through a new social media page for Hardisty Community Charter School, and once completed can be taken in person to MacRae’s in Hardisty or emailed to: hardisty.charter@gmail.com.
However they are delivered, the committee must have them in-hand by this Friday, Sept. 13.
Moser says that the association could also use letters of support from the community, whether from community members or groups, or businesses, and even municipalities in the region.
As of Monday, the Association had not received enough interest to move forward, which they were hoping to do this year to get everything in place for a September 2026 start, which means hitting some hard deadlines that are coming up fast.
The group has asked parents to not just consider those children who are presently attending school, but to also indicate interest if they have a child who will be attending the school when they are old enough, saying these numbers will be critical to show future enrollment.
The declaration forms do not require a parent’s signature, it is merely an indication for the Education minister of families interested in attending if the charter is approved. The forms are not a binding contract, parents are allowed to change their minds later.
“This is the most important step in showing that our community has the student base required to bring a school back to Hardisty.”
Some parents proposed interest in the Hardisty Charter School where they had children attending or wanting to attend the new Holden Rural Academy and felt that Hardisty would be a closer option.
Holden Rural Academy is a public charter school, approved by the Minister of Education in July 22, and offering Grades 7 to 12 learning. In 2020, the Battle River School Division voted to consolidate Holden and Ryley Schools into a single K to Grade 9 school, closing the division’s school in Holden at that time, the same time that the division closed the Allan Johnstone School in Hardisty.
A new report issued by MEI,an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary, issued just last week, says that Charter Schools are driving innovation in Alberta’s school networks, and that the demand for spots in charter schools has risen, with supply of spots struggling to keep pace.
Between 2019/20 and 2024/25, enrollment in charter schools in Alberta grew by 55.3 per cent, the report said, compared to public school growth of 8.8 per cent.
The report also says, “Alberta is the only Canadian province to allow charter schools, which have greater autonomy than traditional public schools and an explicit mandate to deliver innovative, high-quality education tailored to needs not otherwise met within the system.”
Other data gathered for the report indicated that charter schools “outperform all other types of schools in Alberta,” when comparing Provincial Achievement Test results for Grades 6 and 9.
“This underscores the effectiveness of charter schools’ focused educational models and their ability to meet diverse student needs within Alberta’s public education framework.”
The report also notes that, “Charter schools are, by design, required to be innovative and to share their successes with others in the broader education community.
As part of their charter agreements, these schools must describe and demonstrate how they have created novel learning environments and how they communicate effective practices to other schools and stakeholders.
The Hardisty and District Development Group has been advocating on a number of different levels to return a school to Hardisty, stating that it is a crucial step towards growth for the community.
The success of the Holden Academy is proof that a charter school might be a viable alternative for local students, and the new Hardisty Community Charter School Association is banking that success can be repeated locally.
Leslie Cholowsky
Editor
