PRINCE ALBERT — The Prince Albert Catholic School Division will have an opportunity to update a map of early learning educational opportunities that were initially created in 2021.
Director of Education Lorel Trumier gave the board of education an update at their meeting on Jan. 20.
During the 2020-21 school year, Prince Albert was one of six communities selected by the Ministry of Education to complete an Early Years Mapping Project. The Prince Albert Catholic School Division was the lead for the project in the community.
The purpose of the community map is to construct an inventory of local early years services programming and groups by creating a visual map of local services. The map can be used to identify areas of strength and innovation, along with weaknesses and areas for future action.
“We had one of our superintendents construct an inventory of the local early years programming services and different kinds of groups that support early years,” Trumier explained. “That is the conversation to look at. What are the strengths in our community, (and) perhaps what are the gaps?”
The Catholic Division Early Years Map will be able to update the 2021 map.
According to the memo Student Transitions is one of four priorities in the Provincial Education Plan. Milestone two in the plan focuses on the transitions in the early years. One of the actions in Milestone two is that each School Division and First Nations Educational Authority complete an Early Years Mapping for their community.
“They're now looking at completing a secondary layer to this mapping project and have the school division and First Nation Educational Authority work side by side to complete that mapping,” Trumier added.
“We're excited because we've got lots of it done, but now there'll be a new layer that will be added and there'll be supports that we can identify and perhaps gaps that need to be filled and give us a position to advocate for our students and our community.”
She added that the map is also an opportunity to see if any gaps or areas of need exist in early learning,
"Then there's work that can be done if there are gaps. If there are other communities across the province that did it in 2020-2021, there are comparators that can be looked at too,” she explained.
The project is to be completed by the end of the 2024-2025 school year. Trumier said it will give them other opportunities as well.
“There might be some best practices in other communities that are not being considered for this area, but that we could advocate to have in this area, whether it's working with the Ministry of Education or other ministries for that matter,” she said.
