Education Act could be history, Eggen hints

Minister says he would rather amend the 1988 Schools Act

Education Minister David Eggen said Wednesday he’d rather amend existing legislation than adopt the unproclaimed Education Act, which has been waiting in the wings for five years.

“After a thorough review, we’ve decided to consider amendments to the School Act,” Eggen told school trustees assembled in Red Deer on Wednesday for the first of six consultation sessions scheduled this month with school boards across Alberta.

Since he took office in 2015, school trustees have told Eggen there are parts of the Education Act that would be useful, and other aspects they question, he said.

On Wednesday, a half-hour of speeches by Eggen and leaders of three school trustee organizations about the future of education legislation in Alberta was bereft of the words “Education Act.”

United Conservative Party education critic Leela Aheer questions why the government doesn’t modernize and proclaim the Education Act.

“The massive amount of consultations that were done on that act need to be worth something,” she said.

After nearly five years of consultation with at least 20,000 people, the former Progressive Conservative government passed the Education Act in the wee hours of Nov. 20, 2012.

Designed to replace the School Act, which has been in use since 1988, the Education Act would allow students to attend school for free until they’re 21, raise the dropout age to 17 from 16, and give school boards more flexibility in how they operate.

The government spent the next two years writing regulations to give teeth to the new law, including a move to standardize across Alberta the age at which children could start kindergarten.

However, the PC government failed to proclaim the legislation before losing power in 2015.

In 2012, as the NDP’s education critic, Eggen opposed the bill after references to the human rights act were removed, and so “we don’t allow businesses to have a free run on public education.”

Now, after speaking with 45 of the province’s 61 school boards, Eggen said he’d like to amend the School Act, rather than proclaim the Education Act — although he won’t rule that out, either.

“We need to focus like a laser on the things that are important,” he said.

Meetings are set up across the province with school boards and school councils to discuss five major issues — raising the age of free school access to 20, standardizing the kindergarten cutoff, school fees, the 2.4-kilometre distance to qualify for free school busing, and agreements some school boards sign to educate children who live on reserves.

Eggen called the 2.4-kilometre minimum “out of date,” and questioned whether there should be different limits for children of different ages.

A discussion primer sent to school trustees, and obtained by the Journal, questions whether the School Act should set rules for service agreements between First Nations and school boards that would regulate tuition fees, transportation, attendance issues and more.

Eggen has previously said he’s concerned by disparities among the 48 agreements across the province, which determine how 7,200 First Nations students are educated in provincial schools.

The discussion paper also said an estimated 4,500 Alberta kids would have to wait an extra year to start kindergarten if children must be five by Dec. 31. It notes older children are more developmentally prepared for kindergarten.

Eggen is also considering strengthening the School Act to protect LGBTQ students.

The Edmonton public school board had misgivings about two aspects of the Education Act, chairwoman Michelle Draper said Wednesday.

Allowing students who were ages 19 and 20 on Sept. 1 to enrol could cause overcrowding in the district’s already-taxed high schools, she said. That extra responsibility should also come with extra government funding, she said.

The Education Act also proposed defining a student’s residency by the student’s address and not their parents’ address. Families could play around with their residency to get into high-demand schools with closed boundaries, she said.

Conservative critic Aheer said educators often ask her when the Education Act will take effect. No one has said it should be tossed out.

“All of the work that was done in five years to alter the School Act are now potentially being thrown under the bus ... I just think that’s completely inappropriate.”