With Larry Payne away on leave, Battle River School Division appoints acting Superintendent

The Battle River School Division (BRSD) Board of Trustees announced recently it has appointed an Acting Superintendent, to fill the gap created by the continuing absence of Dr. Larry Payne, who is away on leave.

Jamie McNamara, recently retired as Superintendent of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic schools in Leduc, has taken on the role of Acting Superintendent until further notice.

McNamara’s appointment was effective starting last week, Feb. 14, 2014.

Dr. Payne has been away since Nov. 27.

At this time, according to BRSD Communications Co-ordinator Diane Hutchinson, McNamara’s appointment runs until the end of March.

The board welcomed two groups of students to their meeting on Feb. 13.

A group of eight students in Grade 3, who brought their Chrome-book computers along and provided a bit of “inservice” training to Board members, demonstrated to trustees the ways students are able to work together on documents, prepare presentations, and create drawings using the latest technology.

A group of four Grade 12 students, accompanied by parents and community members, expressed their concerns to the Board about the assessment system used by BRSD.

“We are still experiencing much frustration from this new assessment procedure,” students told board trustees Thursday. “No one feels fully confident in the percentages given [from the new procedure].”

Kendall Severson is the chair of BRSD and Lorrie Sitler is the Vice Chair. The board members includes Tracey Boast Radley who represents the eastern portion of the Beaver County Ward, Norm Erickson who represents the City of Camrose, Rebecca Heiberg who represents the western portion of the Beaver County Ward, Judith Mazankowski who represents the northern portion of the Camrose County Ward and Laurie Skori who represents the eastern portion of the Flagstaff County Ward.

Currently the western portion of the Flagstaff County Ward is without a representative.

A by-election is set for May 5 to fill that position, with Nomination Day set for Apr. 7. Nomination forms may be picked up at the administration office in Camrose in early March, according to the division.

Leslie Cholowsky,
Lorraine Poulsen
Caribou Publishing