The School Act, sexual education and Arlington Drive were just some of the hot topics debated at Bellerose this week at the Protestant school board forum.
About 25 people gathered in the mostly empty atrium of Bellerose Composite High Wednesday night for a trustees' forum sponsored by the Alberta Teachers' Association's St. Albert Protestant Separate Local No. 73. All eight candidates were there.
Trustees had five minutes each to introduce themselves and then one minute each to answer questions from the audience. Most went over their allotted time, except for Shannon Homeniuk, who gave an unusually brief 79-second introduction and stayed silent for the rest of the evening.
Cheryl Dumont pitched her business background and her time on the Sir George Simpson parents' council as reasons she'd make a good trustee. "The next three years are going to be very exciting ones for our education system," she said, due to changes to the School Act. Today's kids can't get by with just a high-school degree anymore. "We will have to keep them engaged to keep them in school."
Former teacher, principal, superintendant and Alberta Education worker Joe Demko was one of many candidates who promised to defend local board autonomy and wage negotiation.
"There's more to educating our students than what's measured on achievement and diploma exams," he said. Boards need to support teachers who teach students about tolerance and diverse beliefs. "This must include a continuation of appropriate instruction in areas of sexuality, sexual orientation and religion."
Board chair Morag Pansegrau was one of many candidates to call for more predictable school funding, especially when it came to renovations. "Too much staff time is spent on budgets when we don't know the grants." The board should also push for funds to build a new school in Erin Ridge and a Career and Technology Studies lab at W.D. Cuts.
Diverse questions
One crowd member wanted to know what the board would do with the $840,000 it could receive from selling its land near Arlington Drive to Habitat for Humanity.
It will go directly towards school renovations, said Gerry Martins, who has served six years on the board. "Our schools have a very long list of capital requirements," he said, but the board gets just $1 million a year for them. "That is simply not enough … this money will be used for the needs of students."
Candidates viewed an upcoming revision to the provincial School Act, which governs how schools are run, with anticipation and suspicion.
Mike Johnson, a University of Alberta graduate and a big fan of Career and Technology Studies programs, hoped the new act would let schools give students more hands-on, real-world experience.
The act has plenty of good ideas, said 12-year board member Joan Trettler, but seems vague and philosophical at this point. This act will have to lay down many basics about the school system — such as hours of required instruction — that she had yet to see in it. "We need to know the rules."
One person asked if the board would fund the Roots of Empathy program, a course currently funded by the city that brings parents and babies into classes. Pansegrau, Demko, and Dumont said they'd advocate for it, but added that it could be tough to find the cash.
City voters will elect five trustees to the Protestant board this Oct. 18.
