Level of parental engagement at curriculum meetings praised
More than 400 teachers, academics and others are revising eight subjects in the six-year process, beginning with the early grades. The work began in 2016 and is scheduled to be complete in 2022.
PARENT FEEDBACK
Edmonton Journal columnist David Staples had criticized the openness of the government’s curriculum development process, pointing to information meetings the Alberta School Councils’ Association (ASCA) hosted in May and June. Parents who attended those meetings were forbidden from taking pictures of the curriculum documents or removing paper copies from the meeting rooms.
In a Thursday interview, ASCA executive director Wendy Keiver said Alberta Education officials told the school councils organization they wanted to keep the drafts embargoed so parents attending the meetings would look at the proposed curricula with fresh eyes, uncoloured by other opinions.
There was so much interest from parents in Edmonton, the association added two extra sessions in the capital city. However, some of the best-attended meetings were in Calgary and Lethbridge, she said.
Attendees told her the 1.5-hour sessions were too short for people to digest the large volume of information presented for the eight school subjects.
“This is the first time in my recollection that there’s been this level of engagement offered to parents,” Keiver said of curriculum meetings. “Even if it didn’t meet the expectation of all parents out there, I think it’s a great start at everyone getting better at public consultation.”
CATHOLIC BOARDS OK WITH CURRICULUM
Despite documents obtained by Postmedia last fall that showed Catholic school leaders were nervous about a revised sex education curriculum, Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association president Serena Shaw said Thursday the organization sees no problems with the draft K-4 curriculum as proposed.
The association recruited subject-area experts from Alberta Catholic school districts to review the drafts to see if they would align with their aim of teaching from a Catholic world view, Shaw said. They did.
Last year, Catholic superintendents wrote to Alberta Education saying a health curriculum that promoted “homosexual relationships and/or lifestyles,” masturbation, and gender identity disassociated from biological sex would be problematic for Catholic schools to teach.