It’s business as usual as far as school divisions in the area are concerned after talks between the Government of Alberta, Alberta School Boards Association, and Alberta Teachers’ Association broke down earlier this month.
    For school divisions throughout Alberta, they have a little bit more work in the months ahead.
    “We had all been waiting to see how the tripartite talks would turn out. It looks like now the local unions will go into bargaining with their local boards,” said Bevan Daverne, superintendent of Golden Hills School Division. “It will be business as usual as we move ahead, but we will be bargaining locally.”
    As far as the classroom is concerned, Daverne did not anticipate there would be any disruption to instruction.
    In a letter to the Alberta School Council’s Association, Minister of Education Jeff Johnson stated he expected “children will continue to benefit from a high-quality teaching workforce...”
    Prior to the provincial agreement between the province and teachers, all bargaining was done at a local level. With the province taking care of bargaining, the local school divisions were able to concentrate more on the classrooms.
    “It has been very good for education, because we [the school divisions]  haven’t had to bargain for some time. A return to local bargaining is unfortunate, so we could have had another few years where we wouldn’t have to worry about it,” said Daverne.
    Golden Hills School Division has already been in contact with the local teachers union.
    “There would have been some items that would’ve been dealt with at a local level. We’ll just be dealing with more items than we had expected to,” said Daverne. “We have shared proposals with our local [union], so we’ll plan our next meetings and continue the process.”

    Construction has begun on a solution to a sewer issue that crept into Hussar last summer after heavy rains left several homes to clean up sewage that had leaked into their basements.
    The Village of Hussar is beginning construction this week on an overflow tank for the village’s sewer lift station.
    The aim of the project is to ensure the system does not back up during periods of heavy rainfall.
    “We had some back ups in the summer during a major rainstorm. It overwhelmed the system and we had some backups, so we decided it would be best to have an overflow tank,” said Hussar Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Pratt. “We had four houses that had sewer damage. We had so much water go in, the pumps couldn’t keep up.”
    The tank would collect any sewage that could not be processed by the lift station. Residents should not have to fear of a repeat of last summer’s problems.
    The construction at this time is a temporary fix for the problem. The intent is to expand the lift station’s capabilities as the population of Hussar grows.
    The current station can handle material from roughly 350 buildings. The station pumps sewage from Hussar to the village’s sewage lagoon.
    “This is a temporary solution. We’ll see how this works. It had been discussed that as we grow, to increase the size of our lift station,” said Pratt.
    The goal is to have the tank installed and operational by the end of December.
    “We wanted to get it done now, before the spring, because that’s when we’re going to really need it,” said Pratt.