Community
Attention Parents! Kindergarten registration begins January 14th
Entering kindergarten is an exciting time and a big step for children and their families. It is a wonderful time when children are encouraged to grow creatively, culturally, emotionally, intellectually, physically as well as socially. Parents and teachers work together to ensure transition from home to school as smooth as possible.
Registration continues
CLICK HERE for the ONLINE School Request Form.
Full day Kindergarten is being offered at the following schools:
• Annie L. Gaetz Elementary – Full day and half day options
• Barrie Wilson Elementary – English program only offering full and half day options; French Immersion offering half day only
• Don Campbell Elementary – Full day only
• Gateway Christian – Full day only
• Mattie McCullough Elementary – Full days, with option of half days if enough interest
• Oriole Park Elementary – Both English and French Immersion programs, full days only
Students will be able to attend on either Mondays & Wednesdays or Tuesdays & Thursdays with alternating Fridays.
Programming for young children is based on the following beliefs:
• Kindergarten is to help children acquire early skills in literacy, numeracy, communication and problem solving
• Kindergarten provides children the necessary skills and knowledge for future academic success
• Parents are the most important partners in their child’s education.
The word kindergarten literally means “children’s garden” and recognizes that environment and education contribute to a well-rounded personality. It recognizes the education value of play and hands-on experience. It is meant as a supplement to the nurturing environment at home and encourages the involvement and cooperation of parents in the classroom setting.
While kindergarten is a time for learning, being with other children and developing new skills, it is also a time where the school can identify a child’s strengths as well as needs. This gives teachers an opportunity to start programming for the individual child and the group as a whole.
Learning in Kindergarten
Alberta Education develops the curriculum for Kindergarten in consultation with early childhood teachers. It describes what young children need to learn to prepare for Grade 1 and provides a foundation for future learning. More information is available by clicking here.
Teachers use the curriculum to plan learning activities that meet the Kindergarten children’s needs, abilities and to assess their educational progress. The Kindergarten Program of Studies focuses on developing creative expression, early literacy, personal and social responsibility, physical skills and well-being, environment and community awareness, early numeracy, citizenship and identity, information and communication skills.
Family Oriented Programming Sessions
Family Oriented Programming provides an opportunity for parents and children to learn and spend time together! Classroom based and district based sessions are available to parents/caregivers and children who are attending our Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten programs and have identified delays. The programs are designed to provide additional specialized programming hours for children and offer parents support in various areas of need. Click here to view sessions.
Community
SPARC Red Deer – Caring Adult Nominations open now!
Red Deer community let’s give a round of applause to the incredible adults shaping the future of our kids. Whether they’re a coach, neighbour, teacher, mentor, instructor, or someone special, we want to know about them!
Tell us the inspiring story of how your nominee is helping kids grow up great. We will honour the first 100 local nominees for their outstanding contributions to youth development. It’s time to highlight those who consistently go above and beyond!
To nominate, visit Events (sparcreddeer.ca)
Addictions
‘Harm Reduction’ is killing B.C.’s addicts. There’s got to be a better way
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy
Fuelled by the deadly manufactured opioid fentanyl, Canada’s national drug overdose rate stood at 19.3 people per 100,000 in 2022, a shockingly high number when compared to the European Union’s rate of just 1.8. But national statistics hide considerable geographic variation. British Columbia and Alberta together account for only a quarter of Canada’s population yet nearly half of all opioid deaths. B.C.’s 2022 death rate of 45.2/100,000 is more than double the national average, with Alberta close behind at 33.3/100,00.
In response to the drug crisis, Canada’s two western-most provinces have taken markedly divergent approaches, and in doing so have created a natural experiment with national implications.
B.C. has emphasized harm reduction, which seeks to eliminate the damaging effects of illicit drugs without actually removing them from the equation. The strategy focuses on creating access to clean drugs and includes such measures as “safe” injection sites, needle exchange programs, crack-pipe giveaways and even drug-dispensing vending machines. The approach goes so far as to distribute drugs like heroin and cocaine free of charge in the hope addicts will no longer be tempted by potentially tainted street drugs and may eventually seek help.
But safe-supply policies create many unexpected consequences. A National Post investigation found, for example, that government-supplied hydromorphone pills handed out to addicts in Vancouver are often re-sold on the street to other addicts. The sellers then use the money to purchase a street drug that provides a better high — namely, fentanyl.
Doubling down on safe supply, B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy — though for now that effort has been stymied by the courts.
According to Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague, “The stats tell us that harm reduction isn’t working.” In an interview, he calls decriminalization “a disaster” and proposes a policy shift that recognizes the connection between mental illness and addiction. The province, he says, needs “massive numbers of beds in treatment facilities that deal with both addictions and long-term mental health problems (plus) access to free counselling and housing.”
In fact, Montague’s wish is coming true — one province east, in Alberta. Since the United Conservative Party was elected in 2019, Alberta has been transforming its drug addiction policy away from harm reduction and towards publicly-funded treatment and recovery efforts.
Instead of offering safe-injection sites and free drugs, Alberta is building a network of 10 therapeutic communities across the province where patients can stay for up to a year, receiving therapy and medical treatment and developing skills that will enable them to build a life outside the drug culture. All for free. The province’s first two new recovery centres opened last year in Lethbridge and Red Deer. There are currently over 29,000 addiction treatment spaces in the province.
This treatment-based strategy is in large part the work of Marshall Smith, current chief of staff to Alberta’s premier and a former addict himself, whose life story is a testament to the importance of treatment and recovery.
The sharply contrasting policies of B.C. and Alberta allow a comparison of what works and what doesn’t. A first, tentative report card on this natural experiment was produced last year in a study from Stanford University’s network on addiction policy (SNAP). Noting “a lack of policy innovation in B.C.,” where harm reduction has become the dominant policy approach, the report argues that in fact “Alberta is currently experiencing a reduction in key addiction-related harms.” But it concludes that “Canada overall, and B.C. in particular, is not yet showing the progress that the public and those impacted by drug addiction deserve.”
The report is admittedly an early analysis of these two contrasting approaches. Most of Alberta’s recovery homes are still under construction, and B.C.’s decriminalization policy is only a year old. And since the report was published, opioid death rates have inched higher in both provinces.
Still, the early returns do seem to favour Alberta’s approach. That should be regarded as good news. Society certainly has an obligation to try to help drug users. But that duty must involve more than offering addicts free drugs. Addicted people need treatment so they can kick their potentially deadly habit and go on to live healthy, meaningful lives. Dignity comes from a life of purpose and self-control, not a government-funded fix.
Susan Martinuk is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of the 2021 book Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health Care Crisis. A longer version of this article recently appeared at C2CJournal.ca.
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