At the December board meeting, Trustees accepted the recommendation from senior administration for a 2019-20 school year calendar. This calendar has some changes that impact parents and the community. This article by Assistant Superintendent Mark Thiesen has two parts—the first part includes a brief description of the new calendar, the second part has more details […]

All year we have been posting stories to help explain the school year calendar. This month’s story is one of that series. While the positioning of Christmas Break is less mysterious than some of our other dates, we asked Assistant Superintendent Mark Thiesen to tell us a little about this break. Despite the obvious, placing […]

In previous articles in this series on the school year calendar, Assistant Superintendent Mark Thiesen has explained the reasons for teacher professional development (PD). Our community is pleased that our teachers want the very best for our students. It’s great that they want to learn and improve in their jobs, but why do they have […]

In Canada and many countries around the world, November 11th is the day when we honor the sacrifices of people in armed conflicts. In Canada, we call it Remembrance Day. In the US, it’s known as Veteran’s Day. Other names include Armistice Day and informally, Poppy Day. Most countries recognize that the end of World […]

This is the third article in our series about the school year calendar. On October 19th students will be home again for another day off. We asked Assistant Superintendent Mark Thiesen the question: Why is October 19th a professional development day and what do teachers do on these days anyway? Pembina Hills schools have several […]

There will be no school for students on Friday, October 5th and Monday, October 8th. We all know why there are no classes on Thanksgiving Day, but why not on Friday? Again, we went to Assistant Superintendent Mark Thiesen for this explanation. October 5th is a non-instructional day because we take into consideration the time required […]

This year our students go back to school after the Labour Day long weekend. So why don’t we always start after Labour Day? Some years our students go back in late August — why is that? Why can’t it be consistent? We asked Assistant Superintendent Mark Thiesen to shed some light on these questions. Here’s […]