Jenny is the daughter of a military family, born in Ottawa and moving every two to four years until her father retired. He got a new job in Calgary, so her family moved there in 1973, where she attended junior and senior high. She earned her BEd in Elementary: Reading and Language, and MEd in Curriculum and Instruction, from the University of Calgary. She taught hundreds of students in CBE schools at the elementary and secondary levels for more than 34 years.
Jenny served Alberta's teachers at the local and provincial levels for 31 years. She took on many roles on Calgary Public Teachers Local 38's Executive Committee, including bargaining chair, Vice President, and President, where she spearheaded the creation of the Diversity, Equity, and Human Rights and Strategic Planning Committees. She was also a District Representative and Vice President of the Alberta Teachers' Association, where she oversaw policy and budget review processes as Chair of the Resolutions and Finance Committees. Jenny served Canada's teachers at the national and international levels for six years as Vice President of and international delegate for the Canadian Teachers' Federation. She championed ongoing support for educator mental health and advised the CTF research team's investigation of teacher retention issues and recruitment concerns.
Statement of beliefs
Classrooms & schools should be safe & welcoming spaces. We need to look at current classroom conditions & implement solutions to problems which have present for years.
Every student must be socially, behaviourally, & cognitively engaged in their own authentic learning experiences, derived from modern, well-resourced curricula that make students eager to work with, & critically consider, concepts that reflect their world. Students need time to dig into that material before they dive into thoughtful & purposeful assessment, not taking tests that only serve a provincial data or reporting mandate.
Every child, regardless of abilities, deserves an inclusive, quality education that is publicly funded, with ample teachers & support staff who are caring & qualified to identify & support their learning needs. Schools can no longer afford nor be expected to do more with less.
Learners should be able to attend school in their communities, where classes aren’t in staff rooms or learning commons or on stages, & where they know they’ll get one-on-one time with their teachers every day. Kids shouldn’t have to be bussed out of their communities because their schools are overcrowded. Reducing class size isn’t just about hiring more teachers.
Priority areas
Ensure that schools are safe & caring for all by following local policies & processes that work.
Advocate for appropriate & predictable funding to support learning for every child every day.
Support teachers in filling the curriculum & assessment resource void created by the government.
Views on funding
Alberta’s public schools continue to suffer from chronic under funding. According to the most recently released data from StatsCan & reported by the Fraser Institute, Alberta funds public education at the lowest per student rate in Canada & more than $2500 per student less than the national average. Imagine the school staff that could be hired & the resources that could be provided if funding was increased just to the national average, if not higher. Premiers, past & present, have bragged about the “Alberta Advantage” – it’s well past time to make that our reality. Increasing funding would go far in alleviating the egregious classroom conditions that have developed over decades.
Yes, school boards have fiduciary responsibilities to ensure their funds are used wisely. They also have advocacy responsibilities. Trustees need to work collectively across the province & do more to persuade the government & the public that investing in public education is truly an investment in our future.
How learning conditions can be improved
If public education were appropriately and predictably funded, then school staffs could make decisions about how to do a better job of supporting all of their learners. They could choose to have more teachers to reduce class sizes, or more educational assistants to support kids’ unique learning needs, or hire a qualified teacher librarian to curate their resource collections and work collaboratively with teachers to plan engaging and authentic learning experiences, or hire one or more qualified teacher counselors to support students. They could choose to purchase more up-to-date technology to meet 21st century learning needs. Any one of these, or more of them in combination, would improve learning conditions in classrooms.
Schools are the heartbeat of communities. If new school infrastructure were to keep pace with actual community growth, then more children could attend schools in their neighbourhoods and issues with overcrowding and long bus rides would be alleviated.
How trustees and school boards can best support teachers
Alberta’s public school system, despite experiencing significant current difficulties, still works only because the vast majority of those that work within it do so with passion and dedication. Trustees and school boards must do their part by trusting and respecting their employees, and making that very clear to the public. They need to be vocal champions of publicly delivered, publicly funded public education. They need to keep listening to classroom teachers and educational leaders to ensure that policies and practices match their desired outcomes. They need to consider new directions to bring all necessary expertise into schools to support students and their families; teachers shouldn’t be expected to wear dozens of hats each day, switching them out at a moment’s notice. Today’s trustees need to plan a strategic and coordinated advocacy campaign to lobby the government for the funds needed to improve all students’ learning conditions in Alberta’s public schools.
Views on the new K-6 curriculum
All curricula need periodic updating. The problems started this time when the government decided in 2019 that they didn’t want meaningful input to complete the task. It makes sense to ask the experts – classroom teachers, credentialed subject matter experts, representatives from Alberta’s teacher preparation programs, and others – for input and feedback. Doing so minimizes the chance that non-experts will get it wrong. And that’s just about writing new curricula. Add to that the dearth of appropriate resources, authentic assessment tools, and field testing/piloting opportunities in this latest rewrite. The thought behind the process was flawed from the start.
Our communities want modern, relevant, developmentally appropriate, well-written curricula to be the basis for the thoughtful work done in classrooms every day, accompanied by lots of resources that support students’ learning. Asking for that shouldn’t be too much in a society that expects well-rounded public school graduates.