Draft K-6 Curriculum
- I view this issue with a mother’s heart and academic understanding.
- As a mum of 2 myself, my desire is to see every student in the province receive the best possible education, and this will happen only through a well-developed curriculum.
- With my academic background, I also know that evidence-based decisions usually produce better outcomes. I want to be an advocate for a evidence-based education system that researches, learns, and applies what has worked to improve education outcome and student achievement. I believe this type of system naturally lends itself to providing quality education and producing students who are locally, nationally and even globally competitive.
- Without doubt, there is more room for improvement and the draft curriculum is now open for review and public feedback is being collected. We look forward to the improvements.
- Also, the current Board has already taken a stand against the new curriculum. This means that we will not be piloting. My supporting or not supporting the new curriculum no longer has a bearing on what is happening. That is now down to the partisan politics of the election coming up in two years. Edmonton public and it’s trustees are non-partisan, and I plan to respect that.
Classroom Size and Support
- Smaller classroom sizes with more support are always a goal.
- This is all about money, and we need to negotiate with the government for it.
- Part of the problem coming up soon is that our schools will be growing, but the current model bases half of our funding on the previous two years.
- Without a more fair funding model (which I will be advocating for), growing schools will always have too few resources.
Educational Program Choices
- My role as a trustee is to amplify the voices of students and their families. I need to know what they want.
- What matters here is the enrollment information: For instance, are students enrolling in programs like Logos or the International Baccalaureate program? Are there waiting lists? If the answer is yes, I will advocate for expanding the programs to accommodate increased registration. What we don’t want to do is to make decisions on the basis of our ideology – it shouldn’t matter if we like Christian programs, or think that the International Baccalaureate program is “elitist.”