I am a resident of lands east of Sherwood Park and south of Wye Road. My husband and I moved to the area in 2010. Our children attended Fultonvale Elementary Junior High, Strathcona Christian Secondary School and Bev Facey Community High School. Three out of four of our children have graduated from Elk Island Public Schools. We have one remaining in Grade 12. I have been involved in Education since 1996 when I began teaching in Saskatchewan. In 1998 I moved to Alberta where I worked with children with Autism and taught kindergarten until we started our family in 2001. I have always been actively involved in the education of our children beginning with volunteering and sitting on the pre-school board and continuing into volunteering and sitting on school council in elementary school and throughout high school. I have participated in school councils first in Edmonton and then in Elk Island Public Schools since 2006. I have held positions of chair and vice chair on various councils as well as our district Committee of School Councils. This means that I have worked closely with school based administration, senior administration, and many trustees. I know and understand the role of trustee and am familiar with the provincial legislation, the work of the board, board policy, and administrative procedures. I received the ASCA Parent of Distinction Award in 2019. I sat as a director of the Alberta School Councils Association from 2020 to 2022. These many years of volunteering provided me with countless opportunities to address ministers of Education, participate in consultations, develop and advocate for Education policy.
Statement of beliefs
I understand the unique issues affecting education in this area. Elk Island Public Schools is neither urban, nor completely rural. We are faced with issues impacting education that require clear and competent representation, understanding of provincial legislation and how it impacts local policy development, and a familiarity with the history of education in this area. I was involved with school council during rural school closures in our area and advocated to the board of trustees to grandfather bussing students and for students to remain in cohorts. I have advocated for affordable transportation, reasonable bell times, modernization issues, and countless other issues. I have fostered good working relationships with our trustees and believe that a good trustee is a good listener and responsive to the needs of their community. A good trustee makes decisions in the best interest of all students. I understand how the budget is allocated, the process and importance of making capital requests, and the reality of classroom pressures. I believe in the need for adequate, predictable, stable provincial funding of education in Alberta, the autonomy of the locally elected school board, and preventing the politicization of the board table.
Priority areas
Preventing the politicization of the board table, a non-partisan approach to issues in education.
Advocating for funding class size, complexities, enrollment, curriculum, capital projects, staffing.
Protecting the autonomy of the locally elected school board who best understand community needs.
Views on funding
Longstanding funding shortfalls are evident in the realities of classrooms across Alberta. Public funding belongs in public schools. The capital needs of public education are best determined by the school boards that represent each community. Continuing to direct public funds to private and charter schools at the discretion of the provincial government means fewer capital projects where they are needed. The Adjusted Enrollment Method funding model cannot meet classroom needs or the rapid growth Alberta is experiencing. While the adjustment from the Weighted Moving Average is welcome, the funding has been too low for too long resulting in inadequate budgeting for class size, classroom complexities, new enrollment, curriculum resources and assessments, capital projects, and teacher retention and recruitment. School boards are well acquainted with the needs of their school divisions and understand too well that difficult decisions must be made to meet student needs.
How learning conditions can be improved
Growing class sizes and complexities have created a reality that is not conducive to sound educational practice. Adequate funding has not been available to support new enrollment or the differentiated learning needs of Alberta students. A broad scope curriculum change has contributed to the classroom pressures, often leaving students with large gaps in understanding and teachers with the burden of creating resources and assessments across multiple subjects and grade levels. These factors contribute to teacher load, recruitment, and retention. The path to better teaching and learning conditions can only be addressed through increased funding.
How trustees and school boards can best support teachers
The board must have a clear understanding of issues facing teachers in Alberta, how those issues are impacting student learning in their own communities, and how to best meet the needs of all students across their division. Teachers are supported when classroom learning is supported. The board must set priorities and create policy directing operations to support student learning and ensure that strategic planning and budgeting puts students first. The board must continue to advocate at local and provincial levels engaging with stakeholders, influencing government policy to support student needs and public education through strategic partnerships.
Views on the new K-6 curriculum
The new curriculum is rife with problems. The shift away from an inquiry based cross curricular approach has been compounded by the implementation of too many subjects at each grade level without any plan for continuity, little consultation with teachers, no provision of resources, and no timeline to develop assessments. The content is not developmentally appropriate and complex material is covered without consideration of whether or not developmental and cognitive building blocks are in place. The lack of an evidence based approach to such a broad scale curriculum change is alarming and there have been large gaps created by continuing to move forward with implementation despite feedback from educators and other stakeholders. The burden created for school divisions faced with developing their own resources is great and the pressures placed on teachers as a result of this ill conceived plan rolling forward is problematic.