MORINVILLE, Alta. — A Catholic school board north of Edmonton says it will offer a non-faith based education for residents who want it.
The Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board announced Thursday that it will begin offering non religious-based education for residents in Morinville starting in September.
Morinville was settled in the 1800s as French-Catholic enclaves in an otherwise English-Protestant region.
As a result, the Catholic system is the public system and runs all four of Morinville’s schools.
Some parents told the board that while their children can opt out of formal religious instruction in the schools, they’re still in a Catholic setting, with religious icons, prayers at mealtimes, and religious songs.
The board says it surveyed the general public and its school community and it found that 37 per cent expressed support for a non-faith based education and that 106 students from kindergarten to Grade 12 currently enrolled in its schools said they intended to go to a non-faith based school in the upcoming school year.
“The strength of Alberta’s education system is a system built around providing choice,” David Keohane, superintendent of the board, said in a release.
Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock met with board trustees over the issue in March.
At the time he said that parents should have the option of a public education without religion and that he wanted “the board to step up and fulfil their role as a public school board.”