I work as an academic at the University of Lethbridge. I typically teach a wide variety of undergraduate students. This student group includes incoming first year engineering students, science majors in a variety of disciplines, and students of all backgrounds taking science and astronomy as part of a general liberal education requirement. I also supervise graduate students and am involved in the evaluation of graduate student admissions into university programs. Standardized tests are an important part of post-secondary admissions to ensure that students are accepted into programs in which they can thrive. As such, I support standardized testing measures as a means to ensure that our students are meeting the curriculum learning objectives and have access to national and international post-secondary education.

Canadian students are some of the highest performers in the world on standardized PISA tests and as such have international recognition and access to higher education worldwide.

I recognize that not all students need standardized tests as tools for their future careers, and hope that the focus of curriculum instruction is on the actual learning rather than on learning how to write a test.  The instruction of `how to write a standardized test’ is a waste of time and distracts from more important learning. I also support for aggregate use of standardized testing assessments, and that they be re-evaluated consistently so that they do accomplish intended goals.  Again, this should not be the primary focus of the education system, but a minimally invasive portion of it, where additional resources can be made available to address areas needing extra attention. This year there are extra literacy and numeracy testing programs to ensure that COVID-related learning gaps are addressed in a timely manner. This is an important part of our post-COVID recovery.

Yes.  I support inclusion initiatives and fully support Lethbridge School Division Policy 502.1 on Welcoming, Caring, Respectful and Safe Learning Environments. I support ongoing efforts to educate students, and the community, on inclusion and have seen positive change in recent years. A focus on one-on-one teacher/student and student/student relationships is very important for inclusion. I would lobby for reduced class sizes to better allow current measures to take effect. I would also lobby for a broader range of extra curricular activities within the division to allow more students to participate and develop relationships with their peers.

I see my role as trustee as an advocate for every child. This means ensuring that policies and systems are in place to provide mental health supports for students, teachers, and staff. It also means strong advocacy for sufficient funding and appropriate funding allocation to allow for the resources needed.

Communication between parents and teachers is important to ensure that individual learning plans are developed when learning gaps are such that recovery within class time is challenging.  It is important to recognize that no two students will have identical gaps and it is very challenging for teachers to manage this for entire classes.  A balanced approach of review time and suggested home learning topics has been successful for teachers I have spoken with about this. The schools have incorporated additional literacy and numeracy testing this year to identify areas of learning loss, and thus allow for a better understanding of learning loss and to plan for recovery.  Both division wide and individual specific plans will be needed.

I am hoping that the need for COVID-19 measures will subside, but right now we cannot ignore this real threat to our community.  I have relatives and friends in need of medical procedures that cannot have them because of the state of the AHS right now, this is no longer just about COVID-19. As things settle down I support the school division being responsive to the reduced risks and opening things up accordingly.

I fully support mask mandates within schools to limit and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools. This is not a difficult ask, and it helps to prevent much more serious consequences.  We do not fully understand all the risks of COVID-19 in children, especially higher risk groups such as immunocompromised individuals. Masking helps to protect all of us: children, teachers, support staff, families, and the general public. I have children under 12 who do not yet have an approved vaccine that they can get. Masking is one of the few tools that this group has access to. Within the School division re-entry survey, teachers in particular were very supportive of the masking efforts undertaken. I fully support cohorting measures as a temporary means to reduce COVID-19 transmission and protect our public health infrastructure. I am encouraged by the individual actions of teachers who have sent kids home when they were symptomatic, provided multiple means of communication and coordination between teachers and parents, and have gone the extra mile in providing `at-home’ tools should they be required. I recognize that some things are within the control of the school board, and some are not. For areas out of our control I will still be a strong advocate for the safety of our rising generation.

I cannot think of a reasonable justification to deny admission to a student in the legislated age category living within the school division boundary. The school system has a legislated responsibility to every student within its jurisdiction. I will advocate for sufficient resources within the system to allow for this.

I think that the Lethbridge School division has this one right.  The fees assessed are fairly minimal, and there are exceptions for those needing help to cover them. Students eligible for busing do not pay fees. Fees for extra curricular activities are subsidized through student- and parent-led fundraising efforts, and many of the fundraising activities are decided at the school parent council level. This system works well and many families are generous supporters of fundraisers. Having most fundraising decisions in the hands of parent councils allows for solutions that work within that region.  Division council allows parent councils to share ideas and support fundraising efforts. I have been involved in parent and division councils and have seen firsthand the efforts made to ensure school-fee inequities are reduced.

Publicly-funded privately run schools place stress on the main public school system.  Many of these private schools are selective in their program offerings and admissions, resulting in streamlined programs that look cheaper on paper and are likely to have better standardized evaluation metrics. This can be misleading as they often do not share the extent of the responsibility of a full-public school program.  I would prefer to see extra funding to allow more diverse programming within the public system than have private schools funneling resources away from the public system.

I fully support public education. Last year I was impressed with how the school division set pivot points for opting into and/or out of in-school learning.  This provided a balanced approach to parental choice and a functional, and as much as possible, predictable system. This current year still has an at-home option within the public school system umbrella, recognizing that individual and family circumstances and risk tolerance vary. This model can be applied to other situations, where a reasonable amount of flexibility is provided within the main system that has responsibility to provide a universally accessible and equitable public education to each child.

I do not support the new curriculum. I am all about open and transparent processes and the new curriculum did not do nearly enough consultation with the public, or schools and teachers. 

As soon as the curriculum draft was released, there were a lot of problems pointed out by members of the public, as well as school divisions and teachers. These issues were not limited to one or two subject areas but were identified across the board from music to history, from math to languages, and within science. The vast majority of school divisions rejecting the opportunity to trial the new curriculum speaks volumes.

Over the last decade in Alberta, K-12 curriculum has become highly politicized, and we really need to get the curriculum out of the election cycle and back into the hands of key stakeholders: the public, education and topical experts, parents, teachers, and school divisions. We cannot 

keep tearing up our curriculum every time someone new gets in office.  There are many simple elements of the past few iterations of the curriculum that should be updated that have stalled as political casualties.   On the whole changes to the curriculum need to be more informed by education experts and other stakeholders, with an iterative and meaningful public consultation process before being run in smaller trials, finalized, and broadly adopted.