Some St. Albert trustees are feeling discouraged following the provincial government's pause on field testing new curriculum.
In July, the province informed school boards that it would pause testing the new kindergarten to Grade 4 curriculum, which was slated to begin in the fall.
The United Conservative government said the pause is in order to do more consultations with parents, teachers and subject matter experts.Joe Becigneul, chair for the Greater St. Albert Catholic School board, said board trustees are confident with the new curriculum and don’t feel more consultation is necessary.
“It’s a bit disappointing,” Becigneul said of the pause.
“We thought it was ready to go and we were ready to roll it out.”
Glenys Edwards, board chair for St. Albert Public Schools, said she believes they have already had input from specialists.
“We appreciate that the current government is being cautious in their approach to the curriculum development but our board believes that curriculum development isn't a political activity. Curriculum development is undertaken by specialists, by curriculum developers and by teachers, and the process has already involved input from many stakeholders in this province,” Edwards said.
“This development should be independent of whatever the political climate of the province is.”
Edwards and Becigneul said staff from each school board participated in the review and are confident in the product that was created.
“Over the years, (we) have had a lot of confidence in Alberta curriculum development – Alberta has been seen as a leader in curriculum development. Our curricula have been used by many authorities outside of Alberta, because it's a good curriculum. So when we received the letter from Alberta just a few weeks ago indicating that there was going to be a pause on development and field testing, we were discouraged by the delay,” Edwards said.
Edwards said while she is confident in the new curriculum, she understands the new government may need time to feel the same confidence in the new material.
She said the board had already budgeted for field testing in the fall and she hopes the pause isn’t long. The trustee said she is hopeful they will be able to start the field testing sometime this year.
Both trustees said there is a downside to not rolling out the curriculum in the fall.
“I think that the current curriculum needs updating and so the longer we continue to teach the old curriculum we're losing the momentum of developing that new updated curriculum,” Edwards said.
“Some of the stuff is quite dated that is currently being taught and so the new curriculum was updating some of that stuff and so the sooner we get to it, the better,” Becigneul said.
The province has yet to give a timeline on the curriculum consultation extensions but said it will continue to advance the development of the K-12 curriculum. During the election, the UCP committed to pause and review the material before continuing with the process started by the previous NDP government.
