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By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

LIBRARY CONCERNED

Chinook’s Edge says contract termination with Penhold library shouldn’t impact operations

Apr 30, 2025 | 10:42 AM

The Penhold and District Library is “deeply disappointed” to have their contract with Chinook’s Edge School Division (CESD) terminated, but Shawn Russell, Associate Superintendent of Corporate Services, says the decision was made with its students’ best interests in mind.

Since 2014, CESD has provided the Penhold library with annual funding in exchange for Penhold Crossing Secondary School students’ access to the books, study and lounge area, games and other services provided by the library. In the beginning, that was around $35,000 — for 2024-25, it was close to $20,000.

The partnership began as a P3 project funded by the Government of Alberta, which included removing a wall within the library to create a shared space between it and the school.

In a letter sent on April 27, library representatives say the agreement has been renegotiated multiple times to reduce the CESD contribution, until June 2024, when the division gave one year of notice that it would be terminating the agreement. As a result, the contract expires June 30, 2025.

“The Penhold and District Library is disappointed by CESD’s unilateral decision to alter the terms of what was intended to be a long-term, collaborative partnership,” said a library spokesperson.

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Russell said access issues were the main reason for the decision as the library is closed on Mondays, roughly 20 per cent of the school year.

“The students at Penhold Crossing School have had the worst access to library services of any school within our school division,” he stated.

He also said this partnership was an outlier for the division, as it does not pay any other libraries for library services. CESD proposed a new agreement that tried to align this one with those other models, including improved access to services and no financial contribution from the division.

Library representatives said this included supporting all three Penhold public schools by issuing library cards and providing additional services.

“We have had several meetings with them over the course of the past year and the Library Board just did not express an interest in signing the agreement that we have with the other libraries around our division,” Russell commented.

For the 2025-26 school year, Penhold Crossing School will instead have a dedicated library within it, plus utilize resources from the Waskasoo Middle School set to open this fall, which will have an extensive learning commons and library, he said.

“The changes we’re making will increase the access to not only the the library services, but the support that goes with that,” said Russell. “We’re increasing the library support within the community as well, so the kids will have better access to library services and learning common services within the community.”

The division informed parents of the upcoming changes in a letter last month.

The library board, however, claimed that prior to this notice, parent councils were “not permitted” to discuss the issue during meetings leading up to this point.

Russell said CESD did indeed receive requests from the library board to present at these meetings, but “contracts and partnerships we have with municipalities is not a typical conversation that takes place at school council meetings.”

In the letter, spokespeople for the library also say the CESD funding represents six per cent of its annual budget, “an impact that significantly affects operations.”

Russell noted that CESD funding was exclusively to support resources for the school and its students, so the reduction shouldn’t have any impact to community programming.

The Library says the school is constructing a barrier between the two organizations, but Russell said that barrier will be retractable. This way, the library will still be able to use the previously shared space for its summer programming, he said.