Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Do you want to discuss it or just complain?

Or is it that you now want to discuss the corruption of corporate media?

Why would i want to discuss this? You give me some link to some rando on twitter after I searched for 10 mins on google and didn't find anything.

Also my kids have been in a Charter school for the past 8 years and you are just making kyit up about how they pick and choose their students, turn a profit off provincial funding, and have a made up slush fund. Maybe you should have done some research first.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

My kid's public school has extra fees for extra-curriculars/field trips and fundraising, exactly the same as charters. We went to the STEM Academy open house last year (and will apply this year), seemed the same as public school cost-wise.

Having schools that are open to everyone, charge no mandatory fees, and get the exact same resources per student as the public system doesn't seem like a big problem to me.

There isn't any reason to presuppose that 1 public board will always do the best job for all students. We already have 2 (and the smaller one gets consistently better results). It seems reasonable that they might not be perfect - why should they have a government enforced monopoly on public education.

I went to the same open house... so annoying even though my son is a current student, but had to go to find out more info about my daughter getting in next year. It's only a 3 min drive from my house also.

Best of luck in the lottery!

[puffnstuff]

I was talking about capital expenditures for all non public schools. It was in the last announcement the ucp made about building schools. The funding that follows students is different.
But man you guys went off...

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Wolven

I am saying there should be one system for education, the public system, and that they should make schools that handle diverse learning needs.

One of the misconceptions in public education is the idea that we should just throw all of the kids into the same classroom and call that good. If a kid cannot speak English yet or has some kind of disability or learns better when outside then the education system should be robust enough to accommodate that.

Similar to the charter schools, you could still have lotteries or whatever to get into these focused schools.

The differences would be in transparency in the funding, eliminating the waste of having a board of directors for every charter school, more streamlined maintenance services, etc.

If you really want to have a private school then it should be 100% private funded and still regulated by the public school system.

The CBE, and I'm assuming other school boards as well, offers various specialized programs with entrance lotteries already and they are expanding programs when possible.

[puffnstuff]

The chief of staff to Alberta’s minister of energy and minerals is also the head of the political third-party advertiser Alberta Resource Advocacy Foundation (ARAF). The group’s chief financial officer and former director is named in provincial lobbying records actively lobbying the energy ministry on more than two dozen accounts.

Vitor Marciano currently serves as Energy Minister Brian Jean’s chief of staff. In his decades of political activism, Marciano has held several positions with provincial and national conservative parties, as well as#working#for third-party advocacy groups, including#Alberta Proud#and#Canada Strong and Proud, also known as Proud to be Canadian. He is currently listed as the primary contact for ARAF.

https://theijf.org/alberta-energy-mi...d-gas-lobbyist

[malcolmk14]

Lots of wool pulled over the eyes in this thread today.

Charter schools serve a privileged population and weed out students. I’ve literally taught students who have been asked to leave charter schools in Calgary because they don’t serve the schools goals or the school doesn’t want them there for whatever reason. Just because the charter school you’re at hasn’t weeded out your kid doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I am telling you in no uncertain terms that it does.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Lots of wool pulled over the eyes in this thread today.

Charter schools serve a privileged population and weed out students. I’ve literally taught students who have been asked to leave charter schools in Calgary because they don’t serve the schools goals or the school doesn’t want them there for whatever reason. Just because the charter school you’re at hasn’t weeded out your kid doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I am telling you in no uncertain terms that it does.

hahah wool!

Well then we just got super lucky. I just asked my kids if they knew of anyone who got kicked out Connect when they were there for a combined 11 years.

1 kid got expelled for setting a tree on fire. 1 kid got expelled for writing the N word on a locker. One kid got kicked out for stealing a girl's cell phone and threw it on the roof of the school, but got let back in 2 years later.

There were 4 grade 8 kids last year that aren't at Connect for Grade 9 this year. 3 of them got into the Stem Jr High so they are guaranteed a spot for Stem High School next year. 1 of them moved to Ottawa.

Also Stem High School is new where they had their 1st Grade 12 graduating class last June. and my son does not know of anyone being kicked out the past 2 years for 'not meeting' their standards or goals.....

I'm glad we are privileged.... lol

Oh my son got suspended twice from Connect for pushing, 2 days and for fighting, 4 days. and they never kicked him out. I guess roughhousing is up to their standards

Your anecdotal stories would be better if you actually taught at a Charter school. The kids who got 'kicked' out what were their reasons? for being a visible minority? not buying enough gift cards or meat? their address was in the hood? lol

[Harry Lime]

No 12 year old is going to be a reliable source on the financial machinations of a private educational facility or the economic parameters of their peers families.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

No 12 year old is going to be a reliable source on the financial machinations of a private educational facility or the economic parameters of their peers families.

Well my 13 year old daughter will probably comprehend better, being in that school every day for the past 5 years, than a rando on the internet who thinks it's a private school. lol

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Are you guys confusing charter and private schools? wtf?

It's a lottery to get in. There is no picking and choosing from the 'rich' areas. There are just as many kids from the NE at Connect than from the other parts of the city. I can see that from the bus routes as they come in from all parts of the city.

That's why I said self selection. Poorer and higher needs kids don't tend to end up in the lottery in the first place, for a host of reasons. And as malcolmk14 said, often the ones that do get in are weeded out eventually.

Look at the province's own data. The socioeconomic profile of charter schools students is completely different than public schools.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Why would i want to discuss this? You give me some link to some rando on twitter after I searched for 10 mins on google and didn't find anything.

Also my kids have been in a Charter school for the past 8 years and you are just making kyit up about how they pick and choose their students, turn a profit off provincial funding, and have a made up slush fund. Maybe you should have done some research first.

If you looked at the tweet, the story was right there. Here, I'll put the link right here so you can't miss it again.

https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?x...C0628E117E9F30

That is the Government of Alberta website detailing how the government gifted $43M of the taxpayer dollars to a specific privately run charter school. $123M in total to support charter schools. Let me copy and paste the quick facts section of the page to spell it out for you.

Quick facts
Budget 2024 invests $123 million to support the infrastructure needs of collegiates and public charter schools.
The new Foundations for the Future Charter Academy High School in north Calgary is the first-ever new build capital project for a public charter school.
The rights of parents to choose the kind of education their children receive is protected under the Choice in Education Act, which recognizes public, separate, francophone, private and charter schools, as well as early childhood services and home education programs as being valued and integral to our education system.

The other part of the tweet shows Raman Sawhney's profile page on the board of directors of that same school that received $43M of the taxpayer's money where she is being gifted $120,000 to do something she is not qualified for.

It is shocking that you looked at the tweet and could not find any of that information. I guess it is easier to run around saying everyone else is making up information. I do appreciate the mistrust of X or anyone who still tweets but I do not appreciate you replying to me in bad faith or attacking me in your replies.

But again, what is more shocking that the UCP gave money to a private school and that private school gave a board of director job to an unqualified woman who just so happens to be the daughter of a UCPer that ran against Smith in the leadership race. It's like Smith is buying the loyalty of a political rival within the party.

Also, I did not say anything about picking and choosing students. I said "they create barriers to keep undesirable kids out". You need to read better before you run off the handle with your replies.

Anyway, here is another story that also references the $43M gift of our money to a charter school but from the perspective of teachers:

Why should we care about private and charter schools?

The real kicker is that Charter schools in Alberta are a failed experiment that has been twisted into a form of private school that is just draining the resources away from the public schools.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Your anecdotal stories would be better if you actually taught at a Charter school. The kids who got 'kicked' out what were their reasons? for being a visible minority? not buying enough gift cards or meat? their address was in the hood? lol

With all due respect, all we have here are anecdotal stories. No one is keeping stats on how many students have been gently directed away from charter schools under the guise of "we don't have the resources to support your child," or, "we think they could be supported better somewhere else." You won't get any charter school administrators coming on Calgary Puck writing that yeah we kicked 14 kids out this year back to the public system so our charter can run nice and smooth and we can accomplish our goals without those problems. That's ridiculous.

Like opendoor has told you a couple of times but you seem to refuse to try to comprehend, recruitment practices that charter schools utilize already screens students. Families with time and resources are typically the ones looking for schools of choice. I'm glad you were able to pay $3200 to send your son on a robotics trip; it's great for kids to experience those types of things, but you can't honestly see that even being able to consider that opportunity makes you privileged? I'm not trying to cast a judgment here. I, too, shop for schools, my kids are in every activity they want to be, and they're afforded every opportunity - I guess the difference is I see the other side of the coin. Most lower income families in Calgary don't even know that charter and private schools exist, let alone entering the lottery to get their kid to go to one.

As for anecdotal stories, I'll tell you about a student I taught 8 years ago. We'll call him Adam. Adam came to my grade 5 public school class after being kicked out of a popular Calgary charter school because he was autistic, had ADHD, had a difficult time functioning in group situations, and reacted violently when approached with force or anger. I read the reports from the charter school and he had two documented incidents of "violence". Remember this is a 10 year old autistic child.

Anyway Adam came to our public school, was put in a classroom with 26 other students, 4 or 5 of whom also had severe challenges. He had a challenging year, but he got by. The most violent I ever saw him in the two years I worked with him was he got angry and clenched up his fists and cried when something didn't go his way a few times. He was super talented at tennis and chess and an absolutely brilliantly gifted kid.

Adam graduated from the public system and is taking a Biomedical Engineering degree. He was kicked out of the charter school because he didn't "fit" their charter. They didn't know how to work with him. He disrupted their smooth and easy pursuit so back to the public system he went. The public system doesn't have the ability to simply just weed out kids like him, so it learned to work with him and for him and he was able to be successful within it.

That's 8 years ago and I've had students in my class almost every year since with similar stories. I've got two students this year "back" in the public system after the Charter experiment. Charter schools are great for kids who fit them. Public schools face a much bigger challenge of accommodating for every single student.

[Fuzz]

If we fund charter schools with public dollars and they are so great and available to all, why can't we just have the same experience in public schools? Why do we need a higher tier publicly funded education when education should be universal and accessible to all taxpayers? What kind of democracy do we live in where we create more haves and have nots from childhood based on the wealth of their parents? It's an eventual self destructive system that punishes the less fortunate child.

[Point Blank]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Your anecdotal stories would be better if you actually taught at a Charter school. The kids who got 'kicked' out what were their reasons? for being a visible minority? not buying enough gift cards or meat? their address was in the hood? lol

Kind of weird that you’d rag on someone else’s anecdotal story when you’re literally using an anecdotal story yourself that’s equally, if not more unreliable.

Children notoriously blind to inequity. Maybe your grade 7 child can actually notice the quiet kids at the back who eventually stopped showing up, or knows the socioeconomic status of her peers… but sorry if that makes me doubt.

And based on some of your posts, I think maybe you are a little bit blind to that kind of inequity as well.

FYI The CBE has a much more strict set of standards for expulsion. It only really happens in high school, and they don’t actually get expelled in the traditional sense. They just end up getting shuttled to a different school hoping it’ll give that teenager a change of scenery. If they get expelled again, they have to go through a thorough hearing process, and are only expelled for the rest of the school year, after which they are reinstated.

It may appear stupid, but a public system who’s entire philosophy is centered around supporting all learners and offering all children equal opportunities to engage in learning in a dignified way, with as much grace as possible to make mistakes as is normal for a developing human, is inherently not going to have the same affordances on who they get and who they can “weed” out as a private or charter system. Heck, even the lottery system for full schools only mean you don’t get into that particular CBE school, but the CBE is still responsible for finding you a spot within its system, hence we get students who live right next to Mandela who end up having to bus to Crescent Heights.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

With all due respect, all we have here are anecdotal stories. No one is keeping stats on how many students have been gently directed away from charter schools under the guise of "we don't have the resources to support your child," or, "we think they could be supported better somewhere else." You won't get any charter school administrators coming on Calgary Puck writing that yeah we kicked 14 kids out this year back to the public system so our charter can run nice and smooth and we can accomplish our goals without those problems. That's ridiculous.

Like opendoor has told you a couple of times but you seem to refuse to try to comprehend, recruitment practices that charter schools utilize already screens students. Families with time and resources are typically the ones looking for schools of choice. I'm glad you were able to pay $3200 to send your son on a robotics trip; it's great for kids to experience those types of things, but you can't honestly see that even being able to consider that opportunity makes you privileged? I'm not trying to cast a judgment here. I, too, shop for schools, my kids are in every activity they want to be, and they're afforded every opportunity - I guess the difference is I see the other side of the coin. Most lower income families in Calgary don't even know that charter and private schools exist, let alone entering the lottery to get their kid to go to one.

As for anecdotal stories, I'll tell you about a student I taught 8 years ago. We'll call him Adam. Adam came to my grade 5 public school class after being kicked out of a popular Calgary charter school because he was autistic, had ADHD, had a difficult time functioning in group situations, and reacted violently when approached with force or anger. I read the reports from the charter school and he had two documented incidents of "violence". Remember this is a 10 year old autistic child.

Anyway Adam came to our public school, was put in a classroom with 26 other students, 4 or 5 of whom also had severe challenges. He had a challenging year, but he got by. The most violent I ever saw him in the two years I worked with him was he got angry and clenched up his fists and cried when something didn't go his way a few times. He was super talented at tennis and chess and an absolutely brilliantly gifted kid.

Adam graduated from the public system and is taking a Biomedical Engineering degree. He was kicked out of the charter school because he didn't "fit" their charter. They didn't know how to work with him. He disrupted their smooth and easy pursuit so back to the public system he went. The public system doesn't have the ability to simply just weed out kids like him, so it learned to work with him and for him and he was able to be successful within it.

That's 8 years ago and I've had students in my class almost every year since with similar stories. I've got two students this year "back" in the public system after the Charter experiment. Charter schools are great for kids who fit them. Public schools face a much bigger challenge of accommodating for every single student.

Sorry for being so defensive but Connect Charter changed the life for my son. He has ADHD, was in IPP for all 6 years and was one of the more
'violent' kids in his grade. He was suspended twice and once was in Grade 4 in the 1st term of the 1st year. he would have been the perfect candidate to get booted out.

Instead they gave him an excellent counsellor he would see 3-4 times a week and it totally helped him for high school.

That is terrible for Adam and that was terrible for him to be kicked out. I can guarantee that was not at Connect Charter.

So maybe and i'm sure some Charter schools suck ass in Alberta. Just not the 2 we have encountered.

My wife hasn't worked in 15 years so we are not exactly privileged. Out of the $3200 for his trip, $2200 was made up by fundraising and donations so we had to pay $1000. I mean I never had to submit my T4s for the schools so how would they determine if we were 'upperclass' or not?

[Johnny Makarov]

Oh, thinking back my son didn't even win a lottery to get in. Back then it was 1st come, 1st served and my wife didn't take him to school that morning so she could sign up asap. The other 2 moms she was talking with did the same and all 3 kids got in.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Oh, thinking back my son didn't even win a lottery to get in. Back then it was 1st come, 1st served and my wife didn't take him to school that morning so she could sign up asap. The other 2 moms she was talking with did the same and all 3 kids got in.

It seems that the demand for alternative (i.e. non-CBE) types of schools has increased dramatically since COVID.

Anecdotally, a boy joined my daughter's kindergarten class a week after the school year started (as-in, there was still space)... But that was a few years before COVID and the waitlist is a mile long now.

I think the main thing is that all parents want what's best for their children and it's fantastic that you've been able to find the right school for your son.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

If we fund charter schools with public dollars and they are so great and available to all, why can't we just have the same experience in public schools? Why do we need a higher tier publicly funded education when education should be universal and accessible to all taxpayers? What kind of democracy do we live in where we create more haves and have nots from childhood based on the wealth of their parents? It's an eventual self destructive system that punishes the less fortunate child.

Since entry to Charter schools is not in any way based on parental wealth I really don't see how you're punishing poor kids. It's literally a lottery system open to everyone.

I certainly agree a top tier experience should be available to all kids.

Unfortunately, there are a variety of reasons that doesn't happen in the public system.

My favourite story from my wife's teaching career is the alcoholic teacher she always got asked to cover for. This person regularly missed their first period class (so the other teachers had to cover) and was sloppy drunk any time you saw her outside school hours. I can't imagine she was doing a good job, and it made it worse for everyone else who had to cover her classes. But she was on a permanent contract. This was 10 years ago and this person is still employed at a public high school.

My kids attend a cbe school. My younger son was in a class where one student would throw huge violent temper tantrums. He threw furniture, and the class would be evacuated until he wore himself out. This happened at least 30 times in a two month period. After the first 2 teachers went on stress leave and my requests to have something done by administration were ignored, I went through the entire grievance process with CBE. The student was never suspended once and still attends the school in an out of control fashion. The district superintendent finally promised me my son wouldn't be in the same class as this kid going forward (to get that result I had to mention I had consulted a lawyer to pursue a restraining order). So my son got to avoid that kid but everyone else has to put up with him because they refuse to use any discipline of any kind.

Tldr; the public system has serious systemic issues. More money would solve some of them but not all - at some level the administration involved has to be willing to make some hard choices.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Tldr; the public system has serious systemic issues. More money would solve some of them but not all - at some level the administration involved has to be willing to make some hard choices.

Inclusion without support is abandonment.

Going after the kid or blaming the kid is horrible. This is a child that needs help and all you want to do is punish them.

This is the problem when you underfund a system and force all kids into the same classroom and pretend that is "inclusion". Inclusion without support is abandonment.

The public school system should have the funding to build classes/schools where different kids can go at different paces. Where kids who need extra help can get extra help. The education melting pot is intentional sabotage by people who want public education to fail so they can pull the money away.

Inclusion without support is abandonment.

[woob]

To Fuzz's earlier post about standardizing school construction across the province; we just had an affordable housing project that went up in downtown Calgary which was pre-manufactured off-site and then assembled on-site in 10 days. Manufacturing time and assembly was from April 15 to August 2025. Obviously there was design and planning prior to that, and there will be post site work after. Expected tenant move in to begin January 1. So let's call it a year.

Surely, data and information can be pulled from this and similar projects elsewhere, to develop a blueprint for prefabricated schools and then mass produce them to roll out to the designated sites they've chosen. Yes, I know there are elements of a school that maybe cannot be prefabricated (Gyms, Playgrounds, Theatres, etc.) but those could be in progress during the prefab builds.