Richard Froese
South Peace News

High Prairie School Division has been honoured by the Alberta School Boards Association as the winner of the 2024 Community Engagement Award for outstanding stakeholder collaboration.

HPSD was rewarded for its work to update its mission, vision and core value statements, says an HPSD news release dated Nov. 18.

Trustees accepted the award Nov. 17 at the ASBA Awards Banquet as part of the annual fall meeting.

Board chair Joy McGregor says trustees and administration are proud to receive the award from the ASBA, which serves 65 school divisions.

“To receive this province-wide award for the work we’ve done in our Division is incredible,” McGregor says.

“We were so happy with the feedback we received from everyone to drive positive change for our schools.

“Then to receive this award out of all other school divisions in the province was very special.

“It showed that we are doing what we need to do to provide the best schools and school communities for our students, their families, our staff and our communities as a whole.”

She adds the consultation was valuable.

“The information we gathered from our schools, our families, the people we serve, allowed our board to come together to rewrite our mission, vision and core value statements so they better reflect the values of our communities,” says McGregor.

Supt. Murray Marran also thanks the ASBA for the award to acknowledge the efforts of the board.

“On behalf of the entire High Prairie School Division, thank you to the Alberta School Boards Association for selecting us as the winner of the 2024 Community Engagement Award,” says Marran, who became superintendent on Sept. 1, 2023.

Consultation with partners is vital, he says.

“We were honoured to meet with our stakeholders and collaboratively develop our direction forward,” Marran says.

“Your recognition of our Division and the invaluable feedback from our school communities is an affirmation that our work is of a calibre that garners provincial accolades.”

He says consulting stakeholders is time well spent.

“This was a lot of planning and a lot of work to make this new engagement structure a success,” Marran says.

“Our trustees noted on a number of occasions that the format allowed them to hear what mattered most to their constituents and make informed decisions on the direction of the Division.”

When he and the trustees met at strategic planning, they were able to clearly define the Division’s plan based on comments from the community.

“We developed a mission, vision and set of core values that spoke to our stakeholders’ values,” Marran says.

“We were able to then close the loop and share that information back with our school community to let them then know we are listening to them and that their voices matter.”

He says HPSD plans a similar process this year with the addition of two virtual town halls.

Shortly after he became the superintendent, Marran was seeking a new method to engage the school community to gather comments and ideas.

As part of the board’s four-year plan, trustees set the topics and strategy.

They designed a multi-pronged approach to engage citizens which included 13 community consultation sessions, an online survey and the use of the HPSD Annual Education Results Report data to develop a new set of mission, vision and core value statements, Marran says.

The updated statements were approved by the board at its regular meeting April 16.

The ASBA award recognizes a school division that embraces community engagement as a method to inform, involve and gain input from stakeholders on school division plans, programs and/or services, the ASBA states.

The recipient (this year, HPSD) shows innovative approaches, stakeholder involvement, follow-up procedures, as well as outcomes and benefits achieved as a direct result of community engagement.

Additionally the recipient details efforts made to sustain conversations with participants and the community beyond the initial engagement.