Although Airdrie schools were not included in Rocky View Schools’ (RVS) list of students who were automatically exempt from exams, flooding had an effect on local students.
George McDougall High School had to change the location of their Grad Reception on June 27 in lieu of flooding at the BMO Centre in Calgary.
The ceremony was changed to the Centre Street Church in Calgary.
The sit down dinner portion of the event was changed to an appetizer reception with various food stations and a pop bar. Desserts and dancing followed the formal program in the theatre.
For now, the school has paid the bill for the Grad Reception as they wait for a refund from the BMO Centre. Once the refunded money is returned to the school, it will go to offset the cost of the new Grad Reception, including catering, decorations and serving personnel. Information on the school website stated, “…if we are able to make partial refunds (of BMO ticket sales), they will begin to be processed when we return to school at the end of August.”
Schools not exempt from Grade 12 diploma exams were: George McDougall High School, Bert Church High School, W.G. Murdoch High School, Beiseker Community School, Chestermere High School and the Airdrie and Chestermere campuses of the RVS Community Learning Centre.
The schools not in the effected zone wrote exams as regularly scheduled at their home school.
However, if the flooding directly impacted students in these schools the students could have applied to Alberta Education for an exemption.
RVS Acting Superintendent of Schools Susan Williams announced June 23, all Grade 9 provincial exams would be cancelled and four schools in the division would be exempt from Grade 12 diploma exams following the flooding situation in Southern Alberta.
Students from Springbank Community High School, Cochrane High School, Bow Valley High School and the Cochrane campus of the RVS Community Learning Centre, had the option to attend their home school for each exam as was regularly scheduled, however, from June 24 to June 27 students who could not attend the exam on the scheduled date were automatically exempted from the exam and their final mark was the teacher awarded grade.
“Student and staff safety is our primary concern during these challenging times,” Williams wrote in a release on the RVS website.
Students from the Cochrane and Springbank areas who could not make the regularly scheduled exam date had the option of applying to write the diploma at a later date. However, students who were rewriting a diploma exam without retaking the course or mature students who were challenging a diploma exam were not eligible for exemptions and were required write the diploma exam as scheduled or as approved for a later date. Grade 10 and Grade 11 students from the high schools were able to write final exams as regularly scheduled, however, if students could not attend the exam they were also automatically exempt and received a final grade based on the teacher awarded mark.
