Edmonton Public Schools announced this week that it will suspend all international student travel and exchange programs for the 2026–27 school year, citing a “complex global landscape of evolving political, economic and public health challenges” — a phrase officials confirmed also describes the world as it has existed continuously since approximately the Cretaceous period.

“We made this decision out of an abundance of caution,” said a division spokesperson, speaking from a windowless room that had been swept for both asbestos and geopolitical risk. “The globe is, frankly, all over the place right now. Have you seen it? It’s a sphere. There’s no telling which part of it a student might end up on.”

The division clarified that the ban applies to all destinations, including those previously considered safe, such as Saskatchewan. When pressed on whether the policy was teaching students to fear the wider world, administrators responded that fear was not the lesson — the lesson was risk mitigation, and that the two are easily confused by people who have travelled.

Under the new framework, students seeking international experience will instead be offered an enriched curriculum titled The World, Described. The course features laminated photographs of foreign countries, a unit on imagining airports, and a culminating field trip to the parking lot, weather and liability permitting.

“We asked ourselves: what is the one thing standing between an Edmonton teenager and a complex global landscape?” the spokesperson said. “And the answer was a permission slip. So we simply declined to print any.”

Parents have expressed concern that the measure trades genuine education for institutional self-protection, but the division noted that no student has ever been harmed abroad while remaining at home. The policy will be reviewed annually, or whenever the global landscape becomes simple, whichever comes first.