What will the election mean for schools, students and families? Making sense of too much information!

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”  Carl Sagan

There is an election on Tuesday that will have significant implications for schools, students and families no matter which political party is elected to govern the province for the next four years. 

As a principal in the springtime, when I would normally be trying to establish plans for the next school year through the manipulation of budget figures, class configurations, etc., I am strangely not engaged in the budgeting, staffing or organizational activities that would usually be occupying every waking moment of my life this time of year. The election has frozen our budget work and, at this point in time, we are not certain when we will have any actual numbers to work with as we begin to consider the 'next school year' planning process. 

I have, instead, focused my attention on listening and reading everything I can get access to about education policies across the numerous parties fielding candidates in the election, hoping to develop a clearer understanding of some of the possible implications of strategic policies they are offering, and how these might impact our small part of the Alberta Education landscape. 

Having been a principal for almost 16 years, and a teacher for nearly 30 years in Alberta, I have lived with the impact of many political policies on schools over the years. Based on these experiences, the political policies I read and the political discussion forums I attended, I thought I would try and capture some potential impacts on our school and families.  These are the primary considerations that I believe could impact learning at our school, based on what I have both seen and not seen in the four main political party platforms:

1) Class sizes - depending on which party is elected, and with our current school population, class sizes could remain pretty much the same as they are or we could lose the equivalent in funding for anywhere from 1.5 to 4 full-time teachers in our school

2) School fees - depending on which party is elected, school fees for basic supplies could remain free of cost to parents or be reinstated, or increased. Field trip and enrichment experience fees (such as artists in residence) would continue to be paid by families.

3) Transportation Fees - depending on which party is elected, busing fees could remain similar to what they currently are or they could increase as funding is decreased from the government, possibly as much as double what they currently are

4) Curriculum changes - depending which party is elected, Alberta students Kindergarten to Grade 4 (the configuration of our school) will begin to learn under the guidelines of a brand new curricula that has been over 10 years in development and planning (this work was started in 2008), or it could be delayed and an older version of the School Act enacted instead, or it could be cancelled and the process could start all over. Currently, the newest curricula that guides students' learning are 20 years old and the oldest curricula are almost 40 years old.  

5) Complex Learners - depending on which party is elected, support for complex learners (students with identified learning, medical or social/emotional needs) could decrease significantly, stay about the same or increase somewhat at some point, following consultation with teachers and parents. At least one political platform made no reference to either complex learners or English Language Learners at all, so it is hard to know what might happen to funding if that party is elected. 

6) The GSA controversy -  depending on which party is elected, students may have the option to join clubs as they choose or they may not, particularly when it comes to GSAs (just to clarify, under the current legislation there is no obligation for teachers to tell parents if their student joins a GSA but every teacher is able to contact any parent if they have any concerns about a student - academic or non-academic, including social/emotional concerns)

From my perspective, every possible implication identified above will have an effect on every child in one way or another, whether it is directly through decreased funding for complex learners or increased transportation and school fees or limiting the scope of possible preparation for future learning and employment in a rapidly changing world or limiting students' freedoms of engagement.

Every school will, of course, live with whatever the outcome is - I have lived through many years of leadership telling parents the hard news that supports that were in place one year have simply disappeared the next even though their child's challenges have not, and I have worked alongside teachers in many situations where we were as creative as possible to engage students in learning when the funding reductions meant we were conjuring learning activities from dryer lint if need be. Education survives because children must be taught and become future-ready. Do I truly believe the children who went through schools in the 'lean years' got the same quality of education as those who went through school in the 'giving years'? Well, I will leave that to your imagination and ability to recognize the bamboozles when they are offered as a choice. 

Education funding in Alberta receives fewer dollars per student than it did in 2011, despite funding for growth over the past four years. We have experienced many significant cuts since 1993 and even the increases put in place in the early 2000's were not enough for us to gain ground and actually catch up to where we should have been. We have been making do with less for almost as long as I am able to remember across my teaching career. That is not, nor should ever be, acceptable for our learners and the future of our province and our world.

Please vote and, when considering your vote, please consider these five essentials of elementary education when you are exploring your candidate's platforms. Don't be bamboozled - be informed :)

Thanks so much - and happy voting!

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal