Education Minister Grants Conditional Approval for Holden Rural Academy

Education Minister Grants Conditional Approval for Holden Rural Academy

Michelle Pinon - News Advertiser

Plans to open a charter school in the Village of Holden are one step closer to reality with Education Minister Adriana LaGrange granting conditional approval to the application put forward by members of a community group.

Spokesperson Karla Janzen confirmed the news. “We received conditional approval for the Holden Rural Academy to open this fall!”

Janzen said there are other requirements that will have to be met before final approval is granted. “The budget we submitted to the Minister had estimates

for anticipated expenses. They want to see specific numbers, so we will be making some decisions and getting quotes to comply with that.

The Minister also wants us to determine how many students we have for sure. We started the process of collecting parent declarations about a year ago, so we will be contacting and confirming those, as well as reaching out to more families.

The grand opening of Altario Agriculture Academy took place on April 4. Pictured L-R: Holden Rural Academy board member Gail Alger, Altario Agriculture Academy Principal Kevin Van Lagen, future Holden Rural Academy Grade 12 student Cordell Janzen and fellow Holden Rural Academy board member Karla Janzen.

(Karla Janzen/Submitted Photo)

The legislation specifies that charter schools should have at least 100 students, but the Minister can approve a number lower than that. (They did last year with New Humble.) We are aiming for 70 students the first year, growing to 100 in the next two years. Being under 100 triggers a closer investigation into the financials to ensure viability.”

Kevin Van Lagen, known as the Prairie Principal, has been hired as the group’s educational consultant. “We have been in conversation informally with Kevin since February of 2020. He is familiar with our project, and has a lot of insight into the needs of rural schools and communities.

Kevin will be assessing our programming, to determine which aspects of our programming can be delivered in the Holden school building and make recommendations of upgrades, both immediate and future. He will make recommendations about venues in the community that would be suitable for programming.

He will also assist us in interpreting the letter from the Minister of Education, to ensure compliance with the conditions set out, and assist in writing a response to the Minister. He will give guidance in finding a suitable superintendent, and assess staffing needs to provide a quality education, within our charter.”

We have been assigned a school authority code and a school authority number. We now operate under the same deadlines as a school division, and we have commencement requirements which are laid out in the charter legislation.”

She added that, “The Government of Alberta released the new funding manual this week, and there is a new Start-Up Costs Grant that provides operational financial assistance to support new school jurisdictions, new school/site for existing school jurisdictions with administration costs, i.e. personnel, technology, materials, supplies) incurred before the start of the first school year. We have been assigned a Finance Manager, who will help us navigate through these details.”

Back in early December of 2021, the Minister approved the preliminary application for the charter school that will accommodate Grade 7-12 students.