With its passage imminent, homeschoolers and a group representing Catholic trustees both raised concerns about the new education act this week.
The bill could be passed as early as today and would be the first major update to the legislation governing the province's schools in decades. It proposes to give school boards new powers and greater autonomy, create new tools to help schools deal with bullying, and force students to stay in school longer.
The Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association is concerned about two provisions in the act: one that would allow the minister to direct a school board to provide space to another board if that space were available, and another that would allow the minister to bring school boards together to create broader school divisions.
Lauri-Ann Turnbull, chair of Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools, said the legislation around the Morinville school issue has been more pressing, but they do have some concerns about possible shared space.
Turnbull said having school boards with different mandates share spaces poses real challenges.
"The parents would want to see both systems have their own buildings so they can pursue their own mandates in an unencumbered way."
Despite the concerns, Turnbull said she is willing to give the minister the benefit of the doubt on the issue.
"I think the minister would take many things into account if he has to make those choices."
Jacquie Hansen, a St. Albert Catholic Trustee and president of the Alberta School Boards Association, said with all the work done on the Education Act, they hope to see it passed this week.
She said with all the tools it would provide school boards they don't want to see the bill die with an election call and force the legislative process to start all over.
"In broad strokes it is a good act and we would like to see that passed."
She said the regulations around the bill would help detail how the bill actually impacts local boards.
"I do think the devil is in the detail in terms of the act when the regulations come out and are developed."
Janice Schroeder, a spokesperson for education minister Thomas Lukaszuk said the changes around schools sharing space and changing school divisions are meant only to recognize situations that are already happening around the province.
Homeschoolers
One group much less willing to wait for the regulations around the bills is home educators, who arrived with more than 1,500 people to protest a provision of the bill on Monday.
Paul van de Bosch, a spokesperson for the Alberta Home Education Association, said they are concerned about a provision that requires all instruction and course materials to respect the Alberta Human Rights Act.
He said that represents an infringement on what home schooling parents can teach their children.
"Bill 2 undermines parental rights. It is really that simple," he said. "When you put in the Alberta Human Rights Act it undermines parents' freedom."
He said despite other concerns, if reference to the human rights act were removed it would solve their main issue.
"It the minister would simply take out six words from section 16 and if everything else were to stay the same then we could probably live with it."
St. Albert parent Nelson Stewart and his wife have homeschooled their five children and he said he is concerned what might happen in the future.
"It could be deemed by someone five or 10 years down the road, because these acts last a long period of time, that is not good to teach and you have to teach something different."
He also said because the act classifies a home educator's home as a school, the intrusion would not just be in a school setting.
"It is also difficult so split what is school time and what is life learning," he said. "It could bring the whole human rights act into every aspect of your family life."
He said two of his children did attend high school in the public system, a choice they made, but he doesn't want to see choices around homeschooling restricted.
"Parents have that choice and that is one of the things this act, while it purports to support parental choice, the bulk of the act and the bulk of the wording doesn't support parents."
The education minister offered an amendment on Monday to the preamble of the bill, recognizing parents' right to raise their children within their ethical and religious traditions, but van de Bosch said that is not enough.
