AlbertaParentsUnion

Being a father of 4 and grandfather of 9 parental rights is a topic near and dear to me and which is why some of my posts, such as the one below *** are from Alberta Parents Union.

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Including parents in their children’s education is not only the right thing to do, it’s also common sense.

And, it is popular!

So popular, in fact, that quite a few school board candidates in quite a few school districts beat incumbents at the last school board elections by promising to include parents more.

Parental involvement is also now being debated provincially, with Bill 27 proposing to require schools to disclose to parents if their children are using a name or pronouns different from those supplied by the parents.

Now, you probably wouldn’t know it from the media attention this issue has received, but this policy is actually the status quo at many school divisions across Alberta.

Many of those school trustees who got elected on involving parents more in their children’s education followed through on that promise and implemented similar these policies at the school board level.

And, contrary to the gloom and doom predictions of the opposition to Bill 27, there has been no crisis of hostility between parents and their children or parents and schools in the school divisions where this has been adopted.

Quite the opposite, in fact, as research and common sense show that parents trust schools more when schools give parents more information.

Unfortunately, Bill 27 is still necessary, because the majority of school divisions, including the largest ones with the most students, have not yet adopted common sense disclosure policies.

All four school divisions in the big cities, and some others that foolishly follow their lead, prohibit disclosure of names or pronouns to parents and remove any discretion from teachers and principals to do so.

Worse, they do this through broad policies that prohibit the disclosure of any information that could be related to a child’s gender identity.

That’s an incredibly broad definition and, combined with a lack of discretion being allowed, has led to some truly absurd policy results that (almost) no one must have intended.

For example, in one case, a 14-year-old boy was taken off school premises in a private vehicle to the home of an adult “facilitator” who was not a staff member of the school and did not have children attending the school.

In another, a 13-year-old girl was taken from a rural school to a Calgary hotel for a conference on “diversity, equality, and human rights”, where she was taught how to perform sex acts.

Again, all without their parents knowing anything about any of this.

At a similar conference, a 13-year-old boy was given 153 condoms, a giant spaceship in the shape of a male body part that encouraged him to “explore”, and a 50-page flip book that depicted sexual relations, and was told his mother would never know he missed most of his classes to attend.

He was not told anything about sexually transmitted infections - rather, his mother had to deliver that information, when she first learned of the excursion, by finding the illicit materials in his room.

How is this possible?

Well, one reason is that parents - and grandparents, educators, and taxpayers who support the parents’ role - do not pay enough attention to school board elections.

These are policies adopted by school boards who have been captured by an ideology, despite the ideology being widely believed to be nonsense by the electorate.

The Alberta government’s policies on gender identity policies in schools were introduced to the Legislature on October 31st as Bill 27.

In short, we got both a little more and a little less than we were promised when the ideas were first introduced in January.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association and their front group, the Alberta School Councils Association, oppose the Bill.

They claim to speak for parents, yet in opposing the Bill they prove, again, that they fundamentally distrust parents.

Bill 27 includes parents more in their children’s education by including us more in the decisions that schools have been excluding parents from.

Here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, we think that’s a good thing.

If you’re already familiar with Bill 27, you can become a member of the Alberta Parents’ Union now, by clicking here.

Otherwise, read on as we explore what Bill 27 says, giving special attention to what is different from the January 31st announcement.

Rights In Emergencies

During the COVID-19 era, parents were prevented from having a say in their children’s education.

Schools were closed and COVID restrictions dramatically affected education, often against parents’ wishes.

Bill 27 enshrines a right to education (in-person or online), even in an emergency.

It also requires schools to seek a parent’s consent to other emergency health measures, like masking, for students younger than 16.

While this wasn’t part of the January 31st announcement, it is consistent with the communications parents have been giving to and receiving from this government.

Shifting expectations away from schools abandoning their most basic deal with parents - that they will be open and provide an education - is certainly a pro-parent policy.

Names And Pronouns

Exactly as announced in January, Bill 27 will require schools to inform parents if students begin to use a new name or pronouns in school.

For students age 15 and under, parents must also consent to this change.

You wouldn’t know it from the media attention this issue has received, but this is actually the current status quo policy at many school divisions.

And contrary to the gloom and doom predictions of some, there is no crisis emerging in the school divisions that have already adopted this policy.

Still, this Bill is necessary, because other school divisions, including the largest ones with the most students, have policies prohibiting disclosure of names or pronouns to parents and removing any discretion from teachers and principals to do so.

The lack of any discretion that is permitted in existing school policies is already leading to a large number of absurd policy results (and we’ll have more to say on this issue shortly), but the goal should be to reduce these kinds of unintended outcomes, not exacerbate them.

Notice And Consent

Also, as announced in January, parents will be given notice and the opportunity to affirmatively consent before their children are given formal instruction on sexual orientation, gender identity, or human sexuality.

Changing this notice and consent regime from an opt-out to an opt-in empowers parents and incentivizes schools to be more forthcoming with the content they intend to teach.

If the participation rate in these classes falls, as opponents of Bill 27 fear, that would be an indication that schools have not been honest with parents about what content they are teaching.

Encouraging schools to trust parents is bound to also help parents trust schools in return, and public schools should be worthy of the public trust.

Unfortunately, contrary to what was indicated in January, the opt-in notice only applies to lessons “primarily and explicitly” about sexual orientation, gender identity, or human sexuality.

This loophole is how the ATA’s “Prism Toolkit” is able to be used in K-12 classrooms.

The toolkit’s lesson plans are supposedly “primarily and explicitly” about math or social studies, but are written and actually compiled for their sexual content.

We are concerned that, if Prism Toolkit lessons can be used in K-12 classes without parental consent, this portion of this law will not deliver on its promise of parental inclusion in any substantial way.

Approval Of Resources

There’s also been a similar loophole introduced to the portion of the law that requires supplementary resources on sexual orientation, gender identity, or human sexuality to be approved by Alberta Education.

Approval will only be required when the material is “primarily and explicitly” about one of those topics.

While the rest of this portion of the Bill reflects what we were promised in January, we said then that we prefer disclosure to parents over approval by the Education Ministry.

We believe parents are better than politicians and families are better than functionaries at knowing what is age-appropriate for children.

Ministry approval also opens up the possibility that Catholic or independent schools that prefer more traditional materials on these topics could face roadblocks, especially with a different Education Minister.

We also believe disclosure to parents should be broader than simply the topics of sexual orientation, gender identity, or human sexuality.

We believe it shouldn’t be nearly so daunting, and sometimes impossible, for parents to find out what their child is learning, no matter the topic.

Alliances Are Exempt

Minister Nicolaides clarified immediately after the January 31st announcement that Gay Straight Alliances and Queer Straight Alliances would be exempt from the requirements of what we now know as Bill 27.

Yet, his rationale then was that GSAs and QSAs have no formal instruction or curriculum.

If GSAs and QSAs have no formal instruction, it is left for parents to wonder why Bill 27 exempts formal instruction in GSAs and QSAs from all its requirements.

What You Can Do

As always, we encourage you to speak up and have your voice heard.

If you have an opinion on this legislation, you can provide feedback to Premier Smith at premier@gov.ab.ca and Minister Nicolaides at education.minister@gov.ab.ca.

We suggest thanking them for following through with many of their promises from January 31st, but emphasize that the “primarily and explicitly” loophole must be closed, so that all formal classroom instruction on sexual orientation, gender identity, or human sexuality requires affirmative parental consent.

Still, overall, we're thrilled to see the Government of Alberta correct a series of provincial and school board policies that drifted into absurdity, without parent input.

This legislation is important.

It is a win for parents and children.

And, it could be even better with your help.

We don’t expect busy parents to read every Bill and understand how best to advocate for greater parental voice.

That’s why we’re here.

Our goal is to represent you, and advocate for your views.

Alberta Parents Union is urgently calling on Alberta to teach math teachers to teach math!

That may seem like a silly request, but read on to find out which math-like-substance is being sold to teachers as “teaching math” now.

It's a perennial struggle in parent advocacy.

Parents want to know the basics are being covered in every subject, with time-tested, evidence-based approaches, so we can see our kids are learning.

Whenever we win once, though, the next fad - with the same fundamental flaws - comes packaged in new terms.

First it was “discovery math”.

Now it’s “Building Thinking Classrooms”.

Peter Liljedahl, a professor of math education at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, has seen his “Thinking Classrooms” pervade Alberta.

For him, a teacher demonstrating how to work a problem before the students work it themselves is “mimicking” rather than “thinking”.

Practicing math facts like reciting “2+2=4” and multiplication tables is deemed “memorizing” rather than “thinking”.

And on it goes.

The problem is that memorizing math facts and seeing demonstrations of new concepts are the evidence-based methods for kids to learn math.

These are also the methods parents know from experience are effective.

Liljedahl sells his program as research-based (and, believe us, “sells” is the right verb).

But education experts have investigated and Liljedahl does not have any research at all showing that his program improves math performance.

The approaches he characterizes as not “thinking” are actually shown to improve math performance.

Explicit instruction helps students work examples for themselves before reaching the point of frustration.

Memorizing math facts is crucial because working memory is limited.

Moving operations into long-term memory to be retrieved while solving problems increases the amount of calculation kids can do before working memory is overloaded.

Nevertheless, the Alberta Teachers’ Association's Math Council Spring Symposium in 2023 was devoted to promoting “Building Thinking Classrooms”.

Schools and school divisions all over the province are paying to teach teachers this warmed-over “discovery math”.

Alberta Education is spending provincial grants to sell it too.

That's taxpayer money that we are always being told is too scarce, and lots of it, being spent to promote a program without evidence it works.

Worse, your money is being spent to disparage and discourage methods that we do know work!

If our scores on the world's report card (PISA) are any indication, we can't afford another slip.

In 2012, only 15.1% of Alberta 15-year-olds lacked the baseline math skills to participate in society.

In 2022, 21.4% of Alberta 15-year-olds lacked the baseline math skills to participate in society.

As with other “discovery”-style approaches, the kids who manage to get the basics down - on their own or through parents or tutors - may even flourish in a “thinking classroom”.

But the kids who fall behind stay behind more than with proven approaches.

Parents opposed the so-called “experts” and banished “discovery math” to the dustbin of discarded fads where it belongs.

The same fundamental errors animate this newest fad.

Teachers shouldn't be taught, with our money, to ignore our concerns.

Alberta kids can't afford to spin their wheels while “experts” make money off the latest fad.

Raising children is first and foremost a parental responsibility. Though I don't agree with everything the Alberta Parents Union stands for, I do appreciate their communicating what they perceive to be of importance and interest to parents.

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN TO STAND UP FOR PARENTAL RIGHTS

Premier Danielle Smith has announced that amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights are coming with the beginning of the new session, and she has asked for feedback on what those changes should be.The Premier has already promised to add enhanced rights regarding property, medical decisions, and firearms.

She has stated that these rights should be enshrined in Alberta’s Bill of Rights because they, in particular, have been targeted by governments recently and need reaffirmation as fundamental rights of Albertans.

By that same standard, we believe it is fair to say that governments at every level have recently shown extreme disrespect for parental rights, and recognition and clarification of these rights is therefore necessary and overdue.

That’s why we think it’s vital for the government to include language in their proposal that would strengthen the rights of parents when it comes to their child’s education.

And this email is meant to inform and equip you to give her feedback.

As informed as many of you are, you’re probably already aware that, “the right of parents to make informed decisions respecting the education of their children” is already in the Alberta Bill of Rights - Section 1(g).

If you did already realize that, congratulations, you are better informed than a great number of academics, politicians, and activists.

We discussed their denials in a previous email - now available on our website - entitled “Yes, Parental Rights Exist!”

But even if the Alberta Bill of Rights said no such thing, parental rights pre-exist government.

Governments were established to protect these fundamental rights and to establish justice - the preservation of other rights - when they come into conflict.

But because governments themselves often threaten these fundamental rights, parental rights are essential to protect children from the overreaching state.

Families, under the authority of parents, also protect children from other predators lying in wait against their life, liberty, property, or future enjoyment of these.

Thus, parents’ rights are how you protect children's rights.

Other responsible adults are necessary as a safety-net for children whose family is not that first line of defense.

But when they usurp that fundamental role instead of back-stopping it, disorder only deepens.

This is why the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, when enshrining language rights in education, recognizes parents of language minorities as the defenders of those rights.

Likewise, among the over 2,500 court decisions mentioning parental rights are a number seeing that Section 2 of the Charter means parents have the constitutional right to determine all aspects of their children’s education, including choosing a religious education.

By our count, there are 90 different Canadian laws that either mention parental rights explicitly or use an equivalent phrase.

These add to the weight of seeing parents as the first and most reliable defenders of children’s rights and futures.

You may have heard about efforts already being made by a group with twenty-two points they would like to see included.

The rest of their points are outside the scope of our mandate here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, but point number four reads as follows:

“Freedom of parents to make decisions concerning the health, education, welfare and upbringing of their children”

While that may, at first, seem too broad to protect only a parents’ right to direct their child’s education, we have seen attempts to assert that squarely educational matters, addressed in schools, are actually about the child’s health, welfare, social-emotional development, or some other broader category of their upbringing.

So the breadth is likely essential to protect even core educational oversight.

Furthermore, our friends at The Irreplaceable Parent Project (TIPP) included the following language in the proposed revisions:

The Government of Alberta, on behalf of its citizens, acknowledges that the freedom of parents to raise their children is sui generis - independent from legislation, not flowing from it – as it precedes government. It is a government’s duty to respect that familial boundary until children reach the age of majority. Parents have an obligation to provide for the basic health, education and welfare of their child as they exercise parental custody and authority. The state shall not target parents nor interfere with parental freedoms on the basis of religious or social standing, nor on the basis of fiscal status provided that parents are demonstrably providing for the necessities of their children.

No officer or agency of the government, including any subdivisions, shall infringe on a parent’s freedoms except as demonstrably necessary on a case-by-case basis as provided by law, such steps to be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling government interest by the least restrictive means. Remedial provisions shall be provided for the intentional interference of parental freedoms by governments, organizations or individuals. Family is in the best interests of a child.

These are just some ideas to get you thinking about this important issue.

We encourage you to make your own points and argue your own convictions.

But we hope this email helps you think through some of the issues you want to raise.

The most important thing is just that you get involved in the campaign to stand up for parental rights.

You can give feedback to Premier Smith at: premier@gov.ab.ca

She explicitly asked for broader feedback into her upcoming gender identity policies and announced these changes to the Alberta Bill of Rights, also asking for feedback, all in the last two weeks.

Also, contact your own MLA!

They are the person most directly responsible to you.

They are the person you are empowered to remove at regularly scheduled elections or through recall.

You can find your MLA and their contact information using the “Who is my MLA?” tool on Elections Alberta’s website.

Alberta has long led the way on recognizing parental rights to choose the education of our children.

That fundamental right which pre-exists any government is enshrined in our existing Bill of Rights.

Not only that, but we have led the way in recognizing that right implies that money should follow the child to the education the parents choose.

Without that money following the child, the government truly is putting a thumb on the scale to coerce the choices they choose to allow our tax dollars to fund.

Premier Smith has even recognized that construction funding following the children is a logical extension of recognizing this fundamental freedom.

Now it's time to recognize that parents, not politicians, and families, not functionaries, protect children best from a dangerous world.

For Parents over Politicians,

-Jeff and the Alberta Parents’ Union Team

P.S. When governments chip away at parental rights, they do so with money they took from you by force.

The same goes for anti-parent activists they fund, and even the Alberta Teachers’ Association - which takes dues by the force of law from anyone who wants to teach in the public system and frequently uses them to oppose parents.

The Alberta Parents’ Union has never taken taxpayer money or forced anyone to fund our advocacy in any way.

We never will.

We rely on parents, grandparents, educators, and taxpayers like you who want to make sure there’s someone there to stand for parents’ rights.

He was hoping you wouldn’t notice...

Between the long weekend and getting ready for back-to-school, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to slip two Senate appointments by you.

In theory, federal politics should have nothing to do with education policy, given that's provincial jurisdiction.

So, we normally wouldn’t have anything to say about appointments to the Senate.

Kristopher Wells being appointed to the Red Chamber, though, is not something we can overlook.

For one thing, Wells does not agree that federal politics should have nothing to do with education policy.

He proudly lists that he is an “expert scientific consultant” to the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

The Alberta Parents’ Union has, to the best of our knowledge, stood alone in raising the alarm for the last two years about how the Canadian Teachers’ Federation exists solely to demand unconstitutional federal overreach into the purely provincial jurisdiction of education.

And, to be clear, Wells has been focused on education policy first and foremost, as a quick scan of his biography would make clear.

So why would he agree to be appointed to the Senate, unless it was to continue that advocacy - on a federal level, where it does not belong?

Moreover, why would Justin Trudeau appoint someone with such a focus to the Senate, unless it was to continue his ambition to bring education under some form of federal jurisdiction?

And since Senate appointments are until age 75, Wells could conceivably continue Trudeau’s influence on this file well beyond the time Canadian voters reject Trudeau’s own ambitions.

The best place for decisions to be made about children’s education is at their own kitchen tables, not in the Legislature in Edmonton, and certainly not in the Red Chamber in Ottawa.

Parents and those who support us have another reason to be particularly concerned about this appointment, though.

On August 24, 2023, Wells said:

"Don’t be fooled. So called “parental rights” are a dog whistle for an explicit anti-2SLGBTQI+ agenda, which is focused on banning books, restricting access to inclusive curriculum, and targeting trans and nonbinary youth in schools. This is an organized hate movement."

There are plenty of other things Wells has said and done - some much more inflammatory, in fact - that we are confident this represents the views for which he was appointed to the Senate.

Obviously, anyone who supports parental rights should be concerned by the appointment of someone who dismisses and defames us as a hate movement.

Statements like these also reveal that Wells’ ignorance of the constitution is not limited to his visions of federal mandates of all his favourite things and federal bans of all his least favourite things in education.

Parental rights are explicitly invoked in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and are a constitutional value that Canadian courts have found relevant to a host of cases.

That’s why “parental rights”, or an equivalent phrase, are mentioned in over 2,500 Canadian court cases.

There are, at last count, 90 duly passed Canadian laws that enshrine parental rights.

You would think someone appointed to a law-making body should know that.

Finally, you know his charges are a misrepresentation of our movement, but just for fun, let’s take the “book banning” charge.

Wells supports students as young as five having access to sexually explicit material and calls attempts to limit that access “book banning”.

To avoid being censored ourselves by your email provider, we’ll have to leave you to search out those examples yourselves … carefully, without kids around.

But we could find no condemnation from him at all of Peel District School Board requiring a “cull” of books - not because they contained sexually explicit material, but because they supposedly lacked cultural relevance when viewed through an “equity lens”.

With just one librarian saying she sent over 2,000 of her school library’s nearly 6,500 to be buried, this is by far the most significant instance of book banning in Canada.

Wells does not limit himself from speaking on Peel District School Board’s decisions, though, as he praised their 2015 decision to not allow families to opt their children out of certain classes on sexual orientation and gender identity.

He crowed, “If you don’t like it, don’t use public education.”

The teacher unions he avidly supports, of course, seek to make sure families who “don’t like it” are trapped in the public education options they still have to pay for in taxes.

We may not be able to do anything about Kristopher Wells now getting to call himself a Senator, but we can call on the Government of Alberta to stop the funding of his unconstitutional ideological project via the Alberta Teachers’ Association sending off our tax dollars to the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

Forcing Alberta taxpayers to fund an organization premised exclusively on asking Trudeau to tell us how to run our own education system is just wrong.

We think it’s well past time for the Alberta government to put a stop to this.

They should use their power - whether in legislation or their ongoing negotiations with the Alberta Teachers’ Association - to stop forcing Albertans to fund this blatant advocacy against our interests.

"I send my children to school to be educated, not tested."

- @atypicalalbertn on Twitter

As you may have heard, the Alberta government recently announced that it will be phasing in mandatory literacy and numeracy screenings for K-5 school children.

The tweet quoted above was one of the responses I saw, and it's what prompted me to write this email to you.

You see, like most opposition to this idea, it sounds catchy, sure, but it doesn't actually make any sense when you think about it for more than a second.

It's a bit like saying, "I want my aircraft to fly, not pass safety tests."

Which would be an odd thing for "a typical Albertan" parent to say.

But Jonathan Teghtmeyer, the person behind the handle @atypicalalbertn, is not really "a typical Albertan".

In fact, he is a communications coordinator for the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA).

I guess you could say this makes him more of an "atypical Albertan", than "a typical Albertan"?

Interestingly, Teghtmeyer claimed to be speaking "as a parent", not as a union boss, despite directly quoting a comment his boss had made on the official ATA Twitter account.

Now, obviously, some ATA bosses are actually parents too, and we're sure they want the best possible education for their kids too.

But, they shouldn't pose as "typical" parents in an attempt to make it seem like the teachers' union's preferred policy is also parents' preferred policy.

The ATA is actively calling on the Province to leave parents and our elected representatives in the dark, without access to these key insights into the efficacy of the reading and math instruction our children receive.

And they're claiming that that's what parents want.

In reality, over 3,000 parents have signed our petition calling on Alberta Education to stand up to the ATA and stick by their promise to deliver this crucial data, and more, to parents.

Parents are demanding this information and insight because they know it will help.

Research shows that early and frequent assessment of the youngest children’s skills in reading and math is unquestionably beneficial.

It also shows that parental involvement is one of the most important predictors of a child’s success in school.

Clear assessments, with easily explained results, are one of the key indicators that parents can use to understand how well our children are learning.

That then allows us to hold our kids, ourselves, and the school accountable for those outcomes.

Parents are the real experts in our own kids, and we think we should put the best data in the hands of the real experts.

Because, ultimately, long after they leave a particular teacher’s classroom or even a particular school, our children are our responsibility.

So, let us take responsibility, and give us the information we need to do the job right.

Go to our site to sign our petition.

I post some of the Alberta Parents Union emails because I believe their aim is to represent the parents of Alberta students. I know someone who is familiar with students, parents, Edmonton Public Schools and the ATA and she may comment.

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STAND UP TO THE ATA ON ASSESSMENTS

The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) is once again trying to stand between parents and their children’s education.

This time, they’re upset about parents being told how their young kids are doing in reading and math.

Last week, the Province announced they will be phasing in mandatory screenings in literacy and numeracy twice a year.

By September of 2026, they plan to apply these screenings to all students from Kindergarten through Grade 5.

Importantly, these screenings do not count towards or against the children’s marks.

The assessments are designed to help schools and parents check early and often for kids who need extra help in these foundational skills.

Just like the fire drills kids practice at school, it’s best to know whether a student’s reading and math instruction is working before their proverbial schoolhouse is on fire.

It has been well established, by many studies, across the globe, that early screening and frequent assessment of young children’s literacy and numeracy is essential.

Studies also show that if a child isn't reading by the end of Grade 3, they will usually face significant academic hurdles for the rest of their life.

But, all too often, parents are left in the dark, because school boards have refused to implement effective screening and reporting mechanisms to catch this early enough.

Moreover, the parents’ elected representatives - school trustees - usually have no idea where the youngest kids stand in reading and math without screenings and the data they provide.

Yet the Alberta Teachers’ Association opposes the collection of even the most basic information needed to assess whether education is truly occurring.

The ATA also claims that parents oppose knowing more about our kids' education.

Ludicrous, we know, but that’s their claim!

In fact, the ATA is so opposed to this plan that they have intentionally misled the public about what is being proposed, making it sound like these screenings are high-stakes standardized tests of the sort that affect a student’s marks.

That’s why it’s crucial for parents, who have no other interest in education than to see that our children receive one, to stand up and demand the information we need to prevent educational disaster.

But, why would the ATA oppose this, you ask?

Well, the ATA agrees that there is a problem, but their solution - as always - is to just throw more money at it.

The ATA’s alternative proposal is for the government to just write a blank check to schools, with no accountability, and no plan for why this extra money would lead to different outcomes.

The ATA also beats their usual drum of class sizes.

We’ve written about this idea before, but as a reminder, it was a Progressive Conservative Premier, elected with a lot of help from the ATA, who began the Alberta Class Size Initiative.

That program, which followed the exact policies the ATA advocate for, spent $3.4 billion of your money to try to reduce class sizes.

The result?

Class sizes increased.

To repeat - the ATA have already had a chance to implement exactly the policy they want, and it had the complete opposite effect than what they claimed it would.

Of course, we could have told you that was what would happen!

The ATA’s proposals are outdated, and have been repeatedly proven to be ineffective.

There are, however, two things that are proven to get results: accountability and incentives.

Schools must be accountable to parents and their elected representatives.

Elected representatives must be accountable to parents and schools to provide the needed support.

Rather than listen to the ATA and backtrack, the Province should go further and give parents more information.

If parents were given examples of grade-level reading, writing, and math along with the results of these essential literacy and numeracy screenings, we would be empowered.

Empowered to have a common basis to discuss our children’s progress with schools.

Empowered to partner with schools to advance children's skills.

Empowered to hold schools accountable for their role in teaching our children the basics.

Who could be against all that?

Ah, yes, we almost forgot - the ATA.

They want the Province to scrap this plan and withhold this information from parents.

The Province must not give in to the ATA.

It's time we empower parents with accurate information about our own kids’ education.

Sign our petition to Stand Up To The ATA On Assessment

Since my wife is an employee of EPSB and familiar with seclusion rooms I'll let her speak to their use in schools.

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SO, WHAT IS A SECLUSION ROOM?

Children are being put in cages against their will, and against the will of their parents, by government employees.

This is happening under the same school board that, for four years, kicked police out of all their schools, saying it contributed to what they call the school-to-prison pipeline.

Now, they’re increasing the use of little prisons inside the schools...

They just call them “seclusion rooms” instead.

So, what is a seclusion room?

It’s a room with one door that locks from the outside, for schools to use when a student is dysregulated and cannot be in a classroom for a period of time.

They are meant to only be used when a student’s behaviour presents a danger to the student themselves or others.

Students frequently request to use the rooms voluntarily, and parents are supposed to be able to opt their children in or out of the practice.

But, administrators recently told the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) that kids are being placed in the rooms without advance permission.

They also told the EPSB that usage of seclusion rooms is going up, and 25 more have been installed, despite the school board’s promise they would be phased out.

The EPSB now accounts for 63% of all seclusion room usage in the province, despite accounting for just 14% of the student population.

In the absence of another theory as to why Edmonton public schools should see such disproportionate use, it would seem a failure of leadership is responsible for the frequency of such an extreme practice.

Those are good reasons why resorting to seclusion rooms should receive more scrutiny.

Here’s another: a 16-year-old boy with a rare condition was left in one in Ontario and found dead at the end of the day.

In his case, his mother had told the school he needed to be supervised at all times, especially when napping, as sleep could trigger his seizures.

He was not being monitored, allegedly, leading to his death.

This would be against the provincial regulations in Alberta, but so is using seclusion to prevent property damage, as a punishment, or as anything but a last resort.

It raises the question, if a trained staff member is truly available to monitor each student in seclusion, in keeping with those regulations, are the rooms truly only being used when absolutely necessary?

Why is their use seemingly so much more necessary for schools under the authority of the Edmonton Public School Board than any other authority?

That the EPSB is using seclusion inappropriately is clear enough, but it’s also clear that violent dysregulation has become more common everywhere.

This means that your school board may not be immune from drifting into the same insane policies.

Violent dysregulation is up because we closed schools, playgrounds, and outdoor hockey rinks - sometimes even while restaurants, bars, clubs, and casinos were open.

When we did that, we robbed kids across several key age cohorts of absolutely essential socialization and opportunities to learn self-regulation.

(Yes, the EPSB was particularly keen to hurt kids in this way, but not 4.5 times more than everywhere else.)

We broke a lot of things with COVID restrictions - especially among school-aged kids - and poor policy then limits policy options now.

The other major limitation on policy options now is the adoption of “inclusion” policies.

In this context, “inclusion” means the ideological insistence that students with special needs must be kept in “mainstream” classrooms, rather than specialized programming.

In the absence of “inclusion” policies, one solution would be to have these kids in specialized schools or programs, with staff who know how to deal with their particular situation.

Staff who are not trained and experienced in dealing with violent dysregulation may well be more likely to resort to seclusion rooms.

Without such training, one of the more common solutions in settings without seclusion rooms is to move all students and staff, except for the violently dysregulated student, out of the room.

Obviously, that is maximally disruptive to everyone else’s education.

Yet, equally obviously, children being locked in a padded cell without their parents’ advance consent is also not an acceptable solution.

The error here is thinking that regulations and educrats solve problems with kids being mistreated, rather than contributing to them.

So, let’s do for seclusion rooms what we already do for special needs programming itself: require a plan, written down, subject to review by the parents.

Stop assuming - against evidence - that school board trustees and their administrations are only resorting to these extreme, horrifying solutions when all other options are exhausted.

Stop assuming - as educrats seem always to do - that parents are an impediment to the best care for and education of their children.

Trust, instead, that parents love their own children more than strangers do, and that parents will be their kids’ best advocates!

Now that we’re into the summer and everyone - from parents, to teachers, to the trustees themselves - is paying less attention to what’s going on inside school boards, our work shining a light on them has never been more important.

If we’re going to protect kids from the prison-within-a-school pipeline, or anything else that may slip through, we have to be vigilant.

HOW SCHOOL BOARDS THREATEN SCHOOL CHOICE

There’s an interesting quirk of Alberta’s education system, where one of the most widely exercised forms of school choice is actually found completely under the authority of school boards.

One of the most common ways Alberta families have had access to choice in education is simply by having the choice of which school to send their kids to within their local school division.

That might not sound like that big of a deal, but it’s actually not allowed in many other provinces or countries.

This “intra-division school choice” sends a valuable signal to the school division.

It helps tell school divisions which types of programs, approaches, teachers, and such are actually valued by families.

When this kind of choice isn’t given, and students are forced to attend whichever school just happens to be closest to wherever they live, that valuable signal is lost.

Traditionally, that’s why most school divisions in Alberta have allowed for this form of school choice with few restrictions.

Unfortunately, given many school boards’ opposition to school choice in general, this is an option that is now disappearing in many parts of our province, too.

The school boards will say it is due to a lack of provincial funding for new school buildings, and claim that they are just too full.

In some cases, that may be true.

Alberta’s world-class education system - driven by our world-class choice in education - has attracted a lot of new families with children in K-12 here.

Often, however, it is mismanagement by the school board and a failure to appreciate the value of choice that is truly at fault.

And school boards’ own hostility to school choice often drives these poor management decisions.

For instance, school boards fight to keep schools that don’t use residential assignment - charter schools, independent (or private) schools, and alternative programs they don’t run themselves (more on this in a moment) from using their unused spaces, even though they would financially benefit.

As an example, if a school board allows a charter school to use an unused space upstairs from a division school, they are paid by the Province for the full capital cost of their new tenant.

So, while school boards go on and on complaining that the Province can force them to play landlord “for $1 per month”, that is $1 per month more than they would be earning if they somehow fully occupied the space.

It’s also thousands more than they could earn by leaving it vacant, on account of the capital funding!

Yet almost every school board faced with this choice fights to leave the space vacant.

As another example, if a school board were to sell a vacant property to an independent school, that would free up that capital to use where it is needed and space is less plentiful.

When a restaurant chain, for instance, is faced with such a choice, they never hesitate to sell to “the competition”.

By definition - in a free exchange - they value the money more than the property and the buyer values the property more than the money.

So, what is the reason school boards fight to leave school property lying useless?

They have another method of acquiring money - they can pressure the provincial government to tax it away from all of us.

Some school boards even oppose increasing access to alternative programs as a solution to their crowding issues.

Alternative programs must have a distinct focus, such as innovative pedagogy, non-English instruction, religious instruction, character formation, vocational training, or a sporting or arts focus, any of which must permeate the program.

Public school boards are legally required partners for alternative programs, which are also governed by a private society.

Because of their distinct focus, alternative programs tend to be smaller and to use space differently than traditional division schools.

Thus, they can help with flexible school division management in two ways.

First, parents are often willing to pay higher fees for the unique spaces required by alternative programs, relieving the school division of those capital costs.

Second, since they are often smaller and never residentially assigned, alternative programs could be inserted into vacant portions of school board properties for full provincial funding.

Alternative programs are even consistent with opposition to charter schools, since charter schools are not allowed in areas where their programming would be duplicative of the public school division.

But why would some school boards support actual alternative choices, when they can just lie instead?

What’s to stop the school board trustees from signing a letter stating, for instance, that the Calgary Board of Education already had a school that taught the classics … in Greek and Latin … with uniforms and no cellphones, presumably, to try to stop such a charter school from opening in Calgary?

In case you can’t tell from the specificity of that example, that actually happened, and not just in Calgary.

If a charter school has applied to open in your area, your school board has denied their application, claiming it was duplicative of programming they already offered - whether that claim was true or not.

If one opened anyway, it’s because they appealed to the Province.

Finally, school boards waste time, money, and attention on fighting school choice through the Alberta School Boards Association instead of focusing on making their schools better.

The Alberta School Boards Association is supposed to be a place for school trustees to seek professional development in their role, to better manage their school divisions.

Instead, they are principally known for their opposition to school choice outside their 61-member cartel of school divisions.

As you can see, school boards are irrationally hostile to school choice.

They are making poor management decisions because of their bigotry.

Here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, we support all forms of choice in education.

Children are not one-size-fits-all, so their education can’t be either.

That’s why we support parents having access to the full range of choices in public, separate, francophone, alternative program, charter, independent, and home education.

No matter which of these we choose for our own families, we support the full range of choices because we know from research and experience that school choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats through innovation and competition.

Whether a school board candidate supports school choice is an important yardstick for whether they are serious about managing the school division well.

We intend to help you - and all your friends and neighbours - know how your candidates for school board measure up on this and a host of other issues.

For us to fulfill that mission, though, we need your support.

HOW SCHOOL BOARDS THREATEN SCHOOL CHOICE

There’s an interesting quirk of Alberta’s education system, where one of the most widely exercised forms of school choice is actually found completely under the authority of school boards.

One of the most common ways Alberta families have had access to choice in education is simply by having the choice of which school to send their kids to within their local school division.

That might not sound like that big of a deal, but it’s actually not allowed in many other provinces or countries.

This “intra-division school choice” sends a valuable signal to the school division.

It helps tell school divisions which types of programs, approaches, teachers, and such are actually valued by families.

When this kind of choice isn’t given, and students are forced to attend whichever school just happens to be closest to wherever they live, that valuable signal is lost.

Traditionally, that’s why most school divisions in Alberta have allowed for this form of school choice with few restrictions.

Unfortunately, given many school boards’ opposition to school choice in general, this is an option that is now disappearing in many parts of our province, too.

The school boards will say it is due to a lack of provincial funding for new school buildings, and claim that they are just too full.

In some cases, that may be true.

Alberta’s world-class education system - driven by our world-class choice in education - has attracted a lot of new families with children in K-12 here.

Often, however, it is mismanagement by the school board and a failure to appreciate the value of choice that is truly at fault.

And school boards’ own hostility to school choice often drives these poor management decisions.

For instance, school boards fight to keep schools that don’t use residential assignment - charter schools, independent (or private) schools, and alternative programs they don’t run themselves (more on this in a moment) from using their unused spaces, even though they would financially benefit.

As an example, if a school board allows a charter school to use an unused space upstairs from a division school, they are paid by the Province for the full capital cost of their new tenant.

So, while school boards go on and on complaining that the Province can force them to play landlord “for $1 per month”, that is $1 per month more than they would be earning if they somehow fully occupied the space.

It’s also thousands more than they could earn by leaving it vacant, on account of the capital funding!

Yet almost every school board faced with this choice fights to leave the space vacant.

As another example, if a school board were to sell a vacant property to an independent school, that would free up that capital to use where it is needed and space is less plentiful.

When a restaurant chain, for instance, is faced with such a choice, they never hesitate to sell to “the competition”.

By definition - in a free exchange - they value the money more than the property and the buyer values the property more than the money.

So, what is the reason school boards fight to leave school property lying useless?

They have another method of acquiring money - they can pressure the provincial government to tax it away from all of us.

Some school boards even oppose increasing access to alternative programs as a solution to their crowding issues.

Alternative programs must have a distinct focus, such as innovative pedagogy, non-English instruction, religious instruction, character formation, vocational training, or a sporting or arts focus, any of which must permeate the program.

Public school boards are legally required partners for alternative programs, which are also governed by a private society.

Because of their distinct focus, alternative programs tend to be smaller and to use space differently than traditional division schools.

Thus, they can help with flexible school division management in two ways.

First, parents are often willing to pay higher fees for the unique spaces required by alternative programs, relieving the school division of those capital costs.

Second, since they are often smaller and never residentially assigned, alternative programs could be inserted into vacant portions of school board properties for full provincial funding.

Alternative programs are even consistent with opposition to charter schools, since charter schools are not allowed in areas where their programming would be duplicative of the public school division.

But why would some school boards support actual alternative choices, when they can just lie instead?

What’s to stop the school board trustees from signing a letter stating, for instance, that the Calgary Board of Education already had a school that taught the classics … in Greek and Latin … with uniforms and no cellphones, presumably, to try to stop such a charter school from opening in Calgary?

In case you can’t tell from the specificity of that example, that actually happened, and not just in Calgary.

If a charter school has applied to open in your area, your school board has denied their application, claiming it was duplicative of programming they already offered - whether that claim was true or not.

If one opened anyway, it’s because they appealed to the Province.

Finally, school boards waste time, money, and attention on fighting school choice through the Alberta School Boards Association instead of focusing on making their schools better.

The Alberta School Boards Association is supposed to be a place for school trustees to seek professional development in their role, to better manage their school divisions.

Instead, they are principally known for their opposition to school choice outside their 61-member cartel of school divisions.

As you can see, school boards are irrationally hostile to school choice.

They are making poor management decisions because of their bigotry.

Here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, we support all forms of choice in education.

Children are not one-size-fits-all, so their education can’t be either.

That’s why we support parents having access to the full range of choices in public, separate, francophone, alternative program, charter, independent, and home education.

No matter which of these we choose for our own families, we support the full range of choices because we know from research and experience that school choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats through innovation and competition.

Whether a school board candidate supports school choice is an important yardstick for whether they are serious about managing the school division well.

We intend to help you - and all your friends and neighbours - know how your candidates for school board measure up on this and a host of other issues.

Over 68,000 Albertans - mostly parents - told the Alberta Government we expect schools to not be overrun with the distraction of cellphones, and the potential for bullying they bring.

Apparently, this is the most feedback that has ever been provided on a Government of Alberta survey!

And, yesterday, the Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides, announced the results.

Spoiler: We won!

Obviously, the Minister must have heard the same thing we did from our survey on the same topic, because he announced decisive policies to restrict harmful cellphone use in schools.

Here are the highlights:

All school authorities will be required to have a policy prohibiting cellphones in classrooms with the exceptions of emergencies, medical use, and special learning needs.

School authorities can decide how they will enforce these policies.

School authorities must inform parents if the rule against cellphone use in class is violated.

That one is huge for us, obviously, since parents need to be included as partners in this policy, and so often we are not told early enough when problem behaviours manifest.

Exceptions for in-class learning must be approved by the principal or equivalent.

That's a good policy because it puts all the adults in the building on the same page, whereas "at the discretion of the teacher" puts the teacher on an island, without the support of the other adults.

That lack of support is exactly why policies restricting cellphones have failed in other provinces.

Oddly, a policy that puts the entire burden of enforcement on individual teachers - rather than on the school authority - was the official position of the Alberta Teachers' Association, despite the fact that a policy without such a weakness passed at their recent convention.

As an attempt to deal with the bullying issues that arise with student cellphone use outside the classroom, the government also announced a policy of social media blocking on school grounds.

While it's important to address this issue for the overall policy to be successful, we suspect this is an element the government will be forced to revisit for practicality's sake.

All of these policies are minimum requirements for school authorities to implement.

But, they retain the authority to do more than is outlined here.

Responses so far from the usual detractors have fallen into one of three buckets: this isn't a real problem, schools already have these policies, or changing the subject completely.

To say it isn't a real problem or to change the subject is monumentally disrespectful to the over 68,000 people, mostly parents, who thought it was enough of a problem to give the government a piece of their mind!

It is quite evident that many, many schools do not have any enforced cellphone policies, if for no other reason than Alberta students report significant amounts of classroom distraction.

As parents and grandparents, we have heard from the students in our lives and know the scourge that the distraction and bullying of cellphones has presented.

To insist this is not an important move, on its own merits, is woefully out of touch with the parents, grandparents, educators, and taxpayers these detractors claim to represent.

So, all in all, we expect from your feedback that you will consider this a solid first step.

As always, we rely on you to let us know how the provincial government should build off of this policy, or if we should bring pressure on school boards to implement this policy in a better way.

As a reminder, school boards already had the power to take these actions before the Province forced their hands.

Parents were already clamouring for these policies long before the Province started their survey.

Many school boards waited until the Province's survey was complete to announce unnecessary and costly consultations that are, fortunately, now preempted by this decisive action from the Province.

But the laughable mishandling of this policy by school boards reminds us that we must stay vigilant at that level as well.

At the Alberta Parents' Union, after hearing from you about what you wanted, we were, as we always do, zealously advocating for your position with elected officials.

We also, of course, offered the insights you gave us in our survey and our expertise on the state of the research on this topic to members of the media.

If you want to see this work continue, and keep the wins coming, then please join us today!

Did you know that Alberta taxpayers are indirectly funding an unconstitutional organization dedicated to infringing on Alberta's sovereignty in the area of education?

You see, Alberta teachers are, of course, paid with taxpayer dollars.

But, the government also forces teachers (except those in charter and independent schools) to take some of that money and use it to pay dues to the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

Then, having successfully converted Alberta taxpayer dollars into a union war-chest, the Alberta Teachers’ Association sends $1,007,500 of it to the Canadian Teachers' Federation.

The same thing happens right across the country.

And what does the Canadian Teachers' Federation do with all that taxpayer money given to them indirectly by the provinces?

Well, they turn around and use it to lobby the federal government to take power away from the provinces by adopting unconstitutional education policies at the federal level.

Education is, and always has been, a purely provincial jurisdiction.

The Constitution Act of 1867 could not be more clear on this point:

“In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education”.

The Canadian Teachers' Federation, therefore, exists at the expense of the taxpayers of various provinces with no other mission than to apply pressure for a legal impossibility: federal education policy.

Their own mission statement reads:

“We uphold teaching as a profession and advocate for adequate resourcing, labour rights, and social justice across Canada and around the world.”

There are a few problems with that mission though.

First, despite their global ambition, there are not even national professional standards for teachers (again, because that would be illegal).

Next, education funding and collective bargaining with educators are also both purely provincial responsibility.

We’re sure whatever they mean by social justice is also a purely provincial responsibility too - at least in its application to education and education workers.

We warned you last year when the Canadian Teachers’ Federation sent a letter to Justin Trudeau asking for “federal leadership in education”, which, again, not to put too fine a point on it, is unconstitutional.

There they asked specifically for the feds to commandeer “health and safety of students and teachers in schools”.

They also demanded the feds take over “Truth and Reconciliation in education”, which you can safely assume threatens federal control of the entire curriculum.

All this leads to two obvious questions.

First, why would the Alberta Teachers’ Association support a facially unconstitutional organization asking for fewer things to be decided at the provincial level.

This one is actually quite easy to understand.

The ATA don’t care about whether their preferred policy is constitutional or not - they just think they’re more likely to get what they want from the federal government than from the Alberta government.

They’d rather see the Trudeau government force provinces to adopt unconstitutional federal mandates than have to actually persuade the voters of Alberta that they’re good ideas, worthy of support.

The second question is more puzzling.

Why does the Alberta government allow provincial taxpayers’ money to be used to lobby the federal government to infringe on Alberta’s jurisdiction?

Forcing Alberta taxpayers to fund an organization premised exclusively on asking Trudeau to tell us how to run our own education system is just wrong.

We think it’s well past time for the Alberta government to put a stop to this.

They should use their power - whether in legislation or their ongoing negotiations with the Alberta Teachers’ Association - to stop forcing Albertans to fund this blatant advocacy against our interests.

If you agree, please sign the petition today, calling on the Alberta government to Keep Trudeau Out of Alberta Education: