CBE responds to concerns about changes to Chinook Learning Services
Posted Mar 13, 2018 7:21 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Calgary Board Of Education says the funds to keep enrolling students over 19 at the Chinook Learning Services are simply not available.
The CBE is responding to a group of former students who will try to convince the members of the board to reverse changes to its adult learning program at a board meeting Tuesday.
Director of learning Chris Meaden says they are moving the adult learning program into Lord Beaverbrook and James Fowler high schools.
She said they must move out of their existing sites.
“Because of their age and condition, these buildings are costing us a significant amount to operate and maintain, and they don’t qualify for our current government maintenance funding,” she said.
Back in 2012, the CBE planned to renovate and move into the Booth Centre in Calgary’s East Village, but flood damage the next year ruined those plans.
“We were looking at a little bit of a shared partnership around that, with perhaps business and industry and we just weren’t able to do that right now, in the current economic climate,” Meaden said.
Former attendee Tiffany Stevens is fighting the changes.
She told 660 NEWS, she didn’t finish high school on schedule because she was a single mom, and enrolling at 20 years old, helped put her on track to be accepted to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
“What the CBE is proposing will take dreams away from people that are currently attending Chinook, as well as people that don’t even know they will need this service in the future,” Stevens said.
She said other upgrading programs do not count towards an official Alberta high school diploma, and students can run into difficulties transferring those other credits to different colleges and universities.
