AJHL taking on a new educational partnership

By Lethbridge Herald on July 17, 2024.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Alberta Junior Hockey League and a southern Alberta high school have formed an educational partnership to provide more of a  flexible online education solution for the league’s players.

It will be through the partnership of the AJHL and Dunmore’s South Alberta High School that student athletes with have  the options of high school programming and dual credit post -secondary in an online learning environment.

“We’ve had the opportunity to see South Alberta High School work with a number of athletes in Alberta and specifically hockey players through their partnership with the South Alberta Hockey Association and also the Western Hockey League,” said Charla Flett, AJHL’s executive director.

“We saw an opportunity for our athletes to get the same benefits out of that program, which is working with an educational partnership (that) already understands the unique needs of our athletes as well as their schedules (and) their timelines. And we’ve seen that from a far working so well already with like I said with the Western Hockey League and SAHA.”

This will be open to all AJHL players in the province.

“It provides a new resource for players and their families and our teams to access distance learning and online education in a really consistent format that’s familiar with their unique needs ,” said Flett.

“So previously, athletes may have had to stumble through the process with their families and with teams (to find) the best form of online learning that would accommodate their schedule. This takes the hassle out of it for both the team and the family and their player,  where they now have a really simplistic streamlined approach to accessing both high school and post-secondary courses.”

The partnership will still allow for in-person learning.

“So this allows them to combine kind of a blended form of learning where they can do some of their programming in the classes … and then now also do some of it through online and distance learning,” said Flett.

The dual-credit post-secondary courses will be offered through Medicine Hat College, Olds College, Lethbridge College, SAIT, Mount Royal University and Lakeland College. 

AJHL players and their players can register for the partnership through their respective teams and the league office.

South Alberta High School have resources to help  the student-athlete choose their courses and build the personalize schedule.