GSACRD survey results to be revealed Thursday

By MorinvilleNews.com Staff

Morinville – After contracting Pivotal Research Inc. to conduct a survey of Morinville parents on the desire for a secular program in Morinville, the results are about to be revealed. The Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division (GSACRD) will be holding an info session at the Morinville Community High School Thursday night at 7 p.m. to discuss future education options in the community.

During the session the community will be presented with an overview of the information gathered during the survey.
GSACRD, who operate four fully-permeated Catholic schools in Morinville, have come under fire from parents seeking a non-faith-based education for their children. The Catholic school board has maintained it cannot provide a secular education because of its Catholic mandate.

After a closed door meeting with Education Minister Dave Hancock earlier this year, GSACRD contracted Pivotal to design and send a survey to 1,700 Morinville parents and to conduct a random phone survey of 400 or Morinville’s approximately 7,600 residents – a number Pivotal said represented a statistically significant sampling of the community.

GSACRD has not released information on the percentage of surveys received, the number of families desiring a non-faith-based education for their children or what educational partner – if any – had been selected to provide a secular option for Morinville students.

What is clear is that GSACRD plans to have such a program in place for September. In a message from the board of trustees published on the school division’s website after the survey deadline, GSACRD stated:

“While our mandate to provide Catholic education remains strongly supported and unchanged, by September 2011, a new education option will be available to Morinville residents. Over the next few weeks we will be working with educational partners to enable this to happen. We would like to thank those residents who shared their perspectives with us on the subject so that we could understand their interest and clarify some of their questions.”

The information session will be held June 2 at 7 p.m. in the MCHS gymnasium.

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