Slush pushes Sophie Wheeler’s compact car back into the lane as she passes a snowplow during an early March snowstorm.

It’s 7:30 in the morning as she pulls out of Medicine Hat toward Oyen, a 190-kilometre drive she makes three times a week, part of a new attempt to bring support to some of Alberta’s most remote schools.

That distance doesn’t buffer the challenges students experience there — bullying, social-emotional issues, anxiety, depression, aggression, self-harm and even thoughts of suicide. These have been increasing since the pandemic.

“I think it’s definitely a misconception that everything is easier [in rural areas for kids],” said Wheeler, leaning forward in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on the road. 

“It’s just the way that the schools cope with it is a little bit different.” 

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Rural complexity requires ‘creative’ strategy

Teachers in schools across Alberta have been reporting increased complexity in their classrooms — more students who need more help to catch up, or who are struggling with interpersonal and other challenges since the pandemic.

The problems are no different in rural Alberta, but the solutions have to be.

In this case, it’s a roving team of experts, one of whom puts in 1,200 kilometres a week on the roads.

In southeastern Alberta, the Prairie Rose School Division stretches from the Montana border, 250 kilometres north to Oyen, with 18 town schools, plus 18 more on Hutterite colonies. It’s a land of farmers and cattle grazing leases and wind turbines, as close to Saskatoon as it is to Calgary.

The population is so sparse, the roughly 5,000 people who live within 100 kilometres of Oyen wouldn’t fill the lower bowl of the Saddledome.

Officials with Prairie Rose started to notice an increase in complexity and aggressive behaviour from students five years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Working for a school district in an isolated area, they knew community members would turn to them for help. There just isn’t much other support around.

“It’s hard to access services — physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health, physical therapists, occupational therapists,” said Lisa Lindsay, the assistant superintendent of Prairie Rose. “And so we, the school, in those municipalities, we are everything to everybody.”

The district increased the size of its wellness team to 10 positions two years ago and tried to hire a counsellor for Oyen who lived in the area. 

But without any qualified applicants, it redefined the position as a hybrid travelling counsellor, and Wheeler was hired last fall.

Wheeler lives in Medicine Hat. Her route to Oyen parallels the Saskatchewan border, a two-lane highway dotted with dead patches of cellphone service.

On the day CBC News joined her, Wheeler arrived late at Oyen Public School, slowed by whiteout conditions and stopping to check on a division bus that hit the ditch. 

She checks in with staff, then heads to South Central High School, tucked beside a farm equipment dealership two blocks away. On the teens heading to class, cowboy boots are as common as sneakers, along with boot-cut jeans and ballcaps from tractor brands and seed distributors.

High school principal Dawn Peers lives two minutes out of town, but has a sofa bed in her office in case roads close. Every student who rides the bus is paired with a town kid or billet family to have a place to stay during a blizzard.

Peers and Wheeler chat about specific students. Wheeler lets the principal know there’s a bit more to the story behind why one child is struggling, and they make plans to speak again.

Wheeler greets kids by name as she walks the halls. 

The school serves kids with all types of needs in the same classroom; one student who is non-verbal eats his lunch with an aide in the cafeteria. Wheeler greets him with a wave.

On an average day, Wheeler meets one-on-one with students — or virtually as required — to discuss issues ranging from friendship problems to self-harm, or to follow up on coping strategies. She also connects parents with additional help and advises teachers. 

Prairie Rose students have access to a class specifically focused on mental health programming but only in Medicine Hat.

“Some days you kind of feel like I could spend every day up here,” said Wheeler.

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Later, the 10-person Prairie Rose wellness team will meet to debrief, talk through problems, share successes and support each other, she said.

“It can be heavier work.”

Peers walks with Wheeler past rows of graduation photos. The principal has spent her 30-year career in the Oyen area. She speaks with pride about graduates, a new baseball academy and the school’s place at the heart of the community. 

Peers says the school benefitted from the division’s focus on adding educational assistants — there are four for South Central High School’s student population of about 200 — and now Wheeler and wellness counsellors add “another set of eyes.”

“Every minute that she’s in this building, there’s a long line of students who want to access her,” said Peers. “She’s sparked a new interest this year, and students are seeking her out.

“We could use more of that.” 

Rural teachers ‘burnt out trying to juggle’ complex classrooms, CBC survey finds

When CBC News surveyed teachers across the province in January, more than 400 out of the 6,000 respondents were from rural and remote areas. They told a tale similar to their urban counterparts’ of struggling to maintain classrooms and meet all the needs of their students.

“I love all my kids, but I’m burnt out trying to juggle everything all at once,” wrote one rural teacher in an unnamed district.

“No amount of ‘raising my pay’ will increase capacity or time,” wrote another rural teacher. “It’s just not sustainable.”

In these rural and remote areas, teachers often described smaller classes — 20 students or less — but with a high percentage of children who require dedicated attention or are disruptive.

As well, many teach split classes, which require them to cover multiple grades and provincial curriculum outcomes in one classroom.  

Teachers stressed the need to negotiate for more support to deal with this complexity. 

New provincial complexity teams won’t reach Oyen

After the strike, the province announced $143 million in funding for complexity teams — a teacher and two educational assistants — for nearly 500 elementary schools showing the highest level of complexity.

Prairie Rose received funding for one team for a school near Medicine Hat. But that doesn’t help its small rural schools, so the division is trying to replicate the “complexity team” concept in a roving format available to more than one school.

Recruitment will be a challenge, as it is for employers throughout the region — not just for schools. The municipality is currently running an advertising campaign for teachers, as well as nurses to work at Oyen’s Big Country Hospital. A staff shortage caused the 10-bed facility to close briefly in 2023.

The division recently spent two years advertising for a position like Wheeler’s, and will be competing with school boards across the province as everyone tries to hire for the new teams.

“Recruitment is probably the biggest obstacle we have at this point,” said Lindsay, Prairie Rose’s assistant superintendent. “I think if we could find the people, we will fund it [a roving team], especially in our northern communities where we’re seeing significant rise in complexity.”

Oyen is a small town where kids grow up feeling known by all the adults around them. That fosters a sense of belonging. It can be hard to attract new people to a place so far away from the main centres, but many who grow up here choose to stay. 

Elementary school principal Deanne Smigelski grew up in a small hamlet north of Oyen, and returned to the town to teach and raise her family.

“I’m very thankful for that every day,” she said, describing the community as close-knit, with supportive families.

Reflecting on a long drive home

At the end of a school day in Oyen, students brush the snow off their trucks or settle in for long bus rides.

The two sides of a budding high school romance each take a bus, but in different directions. They live hours apart, with no real chance to hang out away from school.

“That social isolation piece is quite big with our rural kids,” Wheeler said. “They rely on phones a lot to communicate with friends, which can … bring connection but doesn’t replace in-person connection.”

For kids with responsibilities and farm chores at home, the bus ride is also a chance to get homework done, and sneak in some down time.

Without reliable cell service on her journey home, Wheeler usually downloads and listens to course material for a master’s degree in counselling.

Despite all the driving, it’s a job she enjoys.

“I love it,” she said. “You get to really see kids authentically — their personalities — and I see a lot of resilience in these kids.

“To see what these kids go through and [still] coming to school every day … it’s rewarding.”  

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