VOTE for EDUCATION

Do the learning aspirations of 'special-needs' students matter to the CBE? Are the unique life experiences and learning challenges of English as a Second Language (ESL) students important to Board Trustees? These and other vitally important questions and issues were raised at a Board Trustee candidates forum this past weekend. The event, entitled Vote for Education, was organized by the Coalition for Equal Access to Education and the Immigrant Sector Council of Calgary; both community-based not-for-profits engaged with immigrant families and their children. The Centre for Newcomers located in the NE community of Marlborough Park was the venue for the forum.

The overarching theme of the event was to explore with Board of Trustee hopefuls what their vision, strategies, solutions and ideas are regarding the myriad issues facing Calgary's burgeoning immigration/ESL population.

Twenty School Board Trustee candidates were in attendance (17 Public; 3 Separate). The event moderator posed this question to them all; 'what was their vision regarding achieving cultural competency within Calgary schools and how to achieve the best possible english learning outcomes for ESL learners'?

Each Trustee candidate was given a short period of time to outline who they were and to address the posed question. In engaging with the theme of the event the candidates expressed that the current ESL learning system within the CBE was failing to meet many of the needs of it's ESL students. Many pointed to the lack of training for ESL teachers and the absence of appropriate texts; a need for the development of best ESL teaching practices across the school Division (including personalized learning plans for each ESL student) and that more research was required to get to the heart of what ESL learners and their families need to succeed. There was a recognition that the CBE had made great strides in the recent past in improving it's ESL programming and resourcing but that more was required. A common theme from the candidates was that celebrating diversity within the school system was a good thing and that efforts to integrate and celebrate Calgary's ethno- cultural learners and their families should be a priority for the CBE. All of the candidates expressed the view that above all else Board Trustees were advocates for their constituents; they all indicated that they would be strong voices at the discussion table with the Provincial and Federal governments over appropriate funding and resourcing of Calgary ESL learners.

The event organizers pre-selected several ESL students (current and past) to talk about their experiences with the 'ESL system'. All of these young people provided poignant stories of their challenges and successes here in Calgary; they then posed a question that concerned them for the Board candidates to comment on.

Their questions touched on key issues for ESL learners in our Calgary schools: why is there such of lack of sports teams in our schools? is the quality of ESL instruction where it needs to be to genuinely connect with and teach English to ESL students? how can the CBE better connect schools with the families of ESL learners such that the parents of these students are more directly involved in their children's education? will the CBE expand the number of ESL programs, schools ad teachers to accommodate the steadily increasing number of immigrant families and their ESL children? why is the government grant per ESL pupil so low ($500 per student was the figure provided at the forum) and what accountability measures are in place to monitor how these monies are spent by schools? and why does the current system cut-off funding for ESL learners once they reach the age of 19 (regardless of the age that student entered into the CBE)?

The event organizers provided each attending trustee candidate a series of questions prior to the forum touching on issues relating to ESL learners. The candidates answers to these questions are being gathered and collated and will be distributed as soon as possible. CAPSC will make this information available to the public as soon as we receive it.

Submitted by guest contributor Norm Kelly

Wards 1 and 2 Trustee Forum

All seven candidates were in attendance at tonight's Ward 1 & 2 forum - Joy Bowen-Eyre, J. Durrani, Michael Gretton, Trina Hurdman, Jaret Kneller, Roberta McDonald and Josh Traptow. A variety of backgrounds and a variety of perspectives! I don't think there is any better way to really get a sense of a candidate than to watch them participate in a live forum. If you missed it, CAPSC took lots of notes and the summary will be posted soon. Also of note, it was good to see a member of our provincial government, MLA for Calgary-Elbow, Alana DeLong at the forum.

Voters in Wards 5 & 10 will get their chance to mix it up with their trustee candidates at tomorrow nights forum at Clarence Sansom School.

Importance of the Trustee Elections

On behalf of CAPSC Executive, I submitted the following as a letter to the editor at the Herald:

Trustee Elections

This civic election will be part of a critical turning point for the new CBE board of trustees.

Our educational system is experiencing transformational change. At the provincial level, the Education Minister is opening up the School Act. Locally, the Calgary Board of Education, with a budget of just over $1B, makes decisions that impact over 100,000 students, 9,000 employees, the local community and economy. All of this is taking place in challenging economic times.

At a recent meeting of our membership, outgoing Trustee Gordon Dirks spoke directly to the heart of the matter. “The word ‘trustee’ focuses on trust – we are holding in trust the education of children, the resources that will help educate those children, the importance of public education as a vehicle to serve the wider interests of the community at large. It is an important and pivotal role.”

We need to learn more about the candidates we choose to support. CAPSC is working hard to facilitate engagement and to make information readily available. We are non-partisan and do not endorse candidates. Attend any one of our forums or check out candidates on their websites, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have the time, send them an email or better yet give them a call. Before you cast a vote, find out their values, their vision for public education and their understanding of the issues. Our kids and the public school system deserve nothing less.

Leslie Newton, Co-President
Calgary Association of Parents and School Councils
http://www.capsc.ca/

Update on Official Candidate's List for Public School Trustee

The list is now official (see previous blog post). The only candidate to change their mind within the allowed 24 hour period was Aaron Tennenhouse who was running in Wards 8 & 9. We are currently working on the list to provide website and email information for each candidate and will post to our election page as soon as possible. So if you are a candidate and reading this posting, please send us your info!

Nominations Day for the Civic Election

CAPSC has been amazed at the amount of interest in the Public School Trustee elections. There are races in all seven ward pairings and 32 candidates total. The unofficial candidate list is below. Once the official list with contact info is released we will post it to our site.


Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 1 & 2)
Bowen-Eyre, Joy
Durrani, J.
Gretton, Michael
Hurdman, Trina
Kneller, Jaret
McDonald, Roberta
Traptow, Josh

Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 3 & 4)
Ferguson, Lynn
Taj, Tanveer

Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 5 & 10)
Ashraf, Shahzad
King, Pamela
Mangat, Amar
Rowan, Rick
White, Ryan J.

Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 6 & 7)
Indarsingh, Lenore
Lane, George S.
Oliver, Carole

Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 8 & 9)
Cochrane, Pat
Shutiak, Laura
Tennenhouse, Aaron Wilson

Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 11 & 13)
Baehl de Lescure, Sarah
Guinn, Andrea
Heather, Larry R.
Heggerud, Catherine
Kearns, Julie
Lough, Victor
Mowat, Helen
Styles, Sue
Taylor, Sheila

Candidate listing for Public School Board Trustee (Wards 12 & 14)
Amery, Malik M.
Bazinet, Carol
Moore, Wendi Ann

Digital Citizenship in the CBE

Brant Parker, CBE Director of Innovation and Technology, presented on "Digital Citizenship" at our first meeting of the year. Brant is a popular speaker with our parents and last night's presentation was timely and fascinating. He talked about how the CBE is implementing LAWN - Learner Accessible Wireless Network - which will allow students to use their personal devices to connect to the internet at school. The CBE is being proactive in teaching its students ethical and safe ways to use technology while using it to expand and deepen their learning experience.

During his presentation, he referenced a TED Talk by Chris Anderson who discusses the power of video learning. The talk is entitled "Chris Anderson: How web video powers global innovation." Definitely a worthwhile video to check out.

A Welcome Back from the Education Minister, Dave Hancock

This just in - a message from the Education Minister and news about education in Alberta. If you are looking for back to school information, this message will guide you to a variety of online resources.

Updated Alberta Education Resource for the New Math Curriculum

The Math curriculum is a perennial topic at CAPSC meetings and for the last couple of years we have invited math specialists in to help us understand all the changes. Alberta Education has updated their online math resource for students, parents and teachers this year. Links on the parent math page include Curriculum Handbooks for Parents, fact sheets for parents of students in kindergarten to grade 9, and several web pages for more information about the high school curriculum - choosing courses and the options available.

Ipads in class? LAWN, Digital Citizenship and Ever-Greening

My oldest daughter came leaping through the door after her first day of school and placed her open agenda in my hands while pointing to a section titled, LAWN. She had a lovely little smile on her face as she grabbed my cell phone and said, "Mom you need to read that section, it means that we can bring cell phones and ipads to school and use them in class". I was a little confused and told her that she must have misunderstood the information. As I started to read about LAWN (Learner accessible wireless network) and this new term, Digital Citizenship, the confusion grew. I chatted with a few friends and teachers and realized that schools, teachers and parents each had their own interpretation of what LAWN meant.

As CAPSC Executive members we take turns attending CBE Trustee meetings; I was fortunate to attend the September 7th meeting at which, Brant Parker and Cathy Faber from Innovation and Learning Technology, presented on LAWN and Digital Citizenship. I left feeling encouraged because it is the first time that I am really seeing the results of Inspiring Education and Inspiring Action really impacting the way our kids learn. The use of digital devices in our schools is working toward the CBE Ends and the Inspiring Education vision of the Educated Albertan 20 years from now. Out of Inspiring Education Albertans agree that the Educated Albertan will be; an engaged learner; an ethical citizen and will have an entrepreneurial Spirit. I think most of us agree that the use of Digital Devices is something that our children (and hesitantly for some of us) must be able to use in our learning and our work. In fact Mr.Parker said that 96% of future learning requires some form of digital devices.

The problem is of course in HOW we implement this new way of learning. There is a lot of confusion and some genuine concerns from parents, staff, Trustees and students.

Mr.Parker explained that the first concern is of course safety and that teachers must help students learn HOW to conduct themselves appropriately both at school and at home when using digital technologies. There are on-line modules that teacher can access for training and materials that can be used for Professional Development Days. There is already a system of 'content filtering' in place which allows for 4 levels of access, 1 being very restrictive and the 4th being very open. This would apply to any wireless device used in the school both personal and CBE devices. At this point the Principal determines which level is appropriate for their school.

There are references to 'Ever-greening' and possibly moving to a system where instead of just replacing current desktops we replace them with a digital device that students can take home.

Concerns, questions? Join us at the September 15th CAPSC meeting where Mr.Parker will present information on LAWN and Digital Citizenship and answer your questions. He is genuinely interested in feedback from parents. Don't miss this opportunity!

For more information on Digital Citizenship visit, http://www.innovativelearning.ca

Posted by: Eryn Kelly (CAPSC Executive Member)

Trustee Elections: Make Sure Your Voice is Heard

There are many ways to get involved in the democratic process that is so key to a healthy education system in our province. The Public School Boards' Association of Alberta (PSBAA), in a back to school message to parents, is calling for all of us to step up to the plate and make a difference. This civic election is key - transformational change is upon us and old challenges remain. You can have your voice heard in the following ways:

• CAPSC Public School Trustee Forums (see our website for complete schedule)



• Look for the Public School Trustee Questionnaire coming soon from CAPSC and the ATA (again see our website for more details and a link to the questionnaire and candidates' responses)



• Engage the candidates through social media - facebook, candidate's website, twitter (CAPSC will post links after September 20th when all candidates are confirmed)



• Share and discuss information at your school council meeting



• Talk it up in your community



• But most importantly - VOTE!

Alberta Education Wants Your Input!

Alberta Education is asking for your input on the future of education in the province. A new Transformation Guide survey is now open, and focuses on topics such as personalized learning, inclusive education and school facilities. There will also be an opportunity to participate in an online facilitated dialogue at a later date.