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Once you put children safety at risk… I can’t be silent any longer.

From charitable tax receipts not being issued correctly… to having private information of your child’s educational performance being stored and “pushed” to you by foreign apps that you must agree to their terms saying that information is processed by foreign servers, to hearing wasteful spending radio ads, to leaving an entire bus route of elementary school children stranded for nearly an hour while their “bus status app” says “all buses on time”.

Yes, this is what the RDCRS has to offer you in just this past year alone.

I ran for trustee in 2013, so sure, some might try to spin this as sour grapes, but when you are tired of administrators that have stopped focusing on children and have become more focused on child recruitment, you have a problem. I ran for a trustee position to prevent this very type of thing going on, and here we sit.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the teachers, their assistants, and staff doing everything to help the children. But something needs to be done at the top.

Charitable Receipts

To be eligible for a charitable donation credit, all tax receipts must have the Registered Charity number on them. This is a 9-digit number followed by “RR” and then 4 more digits. Every single RDCRS receipt received by my accounting firm this past tax season was missing this number. This was raised by yours truly to their office on behalf of my clients. They did not reissue replacements until I pushed back repeatedly and individually per client. They said over the phone they would not be mailing out replacements for everyone. So, if you donated this past year, enjoy your reassessment.

Performance Reports

We all want to know how our child(ren) is(are) doing in school. This past year RDCRS decided to launch the use of PowerSchool LLC. They say all of your child’s information is held on Canadian servers. However, when you go to sign up for the app it says that the app uses foreign servers for you to access, view, and receive notifications on, your child’s performance. This is how a foreign app works.

While you may store information in Canada, it is being sent through other connections and servers in a foreign country like the United States. While I’m fine seeing pictures on social media or getting the quick note from a teacher about what “little Johnny” did today… when it comes to academic performance and review, privacy and security steps should be taken. When I raised this concern with the superintendent, his response is that commercial privacy laws do not apply to them.

In my request I stated:

“Further to my previous e-mail: although PIPEDA may not apply to RDCRS directly, by engaging a corporate entity, you are required under FOIP S.38 and 39(1) to have proper controls in place which would require our consent. The corporate entity PowerSchool LLC is to be bound by PIPEDA as well as the stricter Alberta version, PIPA, as it is not a government agency. The app from the Canadian version of the app store that you have instructed parents to use to access is warning us upon installation that the data is being routed via PowerSchool LLC’s US resident servers. This is not a violation of PIPEDA by PowerSchool LLC directly, as they are requesting our permission on installing the app. This warning does not exist unless you are in Canada. This is not a “default”, this is a requirement by PowerSchool for any notifications to Canadian resident users.

However, the letter sent to parents states that we are required to sign up, or we will not receive information. Requiring parents to use the app in order to access report cards and information on our children is not allowing for our consent, it is being forced. A government department forcing a parent to accept a foreign corporation’s “terms of service agreement” is in violation of FOIP.”

His response:
“In your message you reference Sec. 38 and 39(1) of the FOIP Act. Our school division is in compliance with these sections of this Act as we have proper controls in place because our student data is housed on our servers. We protect personal information by using reasonable security arrangements against risk of unauthorized access. As a result parent consent is not required.”

So parent consent is not required with the school division, but yet parent consent is required by the corporate entity, which then routes the data from Canada through their U.S. server. However, if you don’t consent, you don’t get updates other than a final report at the end of the “reporting term”. Sounds like forced consent to me. Why would I want to have my child’s personal and private information sent through a foreign country?

Radio Ads

Instead of focusing on children that they have, they would rather recruit more children instead. During the 2013 election, I was amazed how a former trustee chair stated, “if we convert just one child to Catholicism then it [advertising] is worth it.”

Apparently, conversion is more important than the education of the children already there.

I have asked how much was spent on advertising but the only response I received was “fill out a freedom of information request. There will be fees associated with it because it is not your personal information.”

How many textbooks could we have purchased for the amount they spend on advertising in a year? I’m sure many parents would like to know.

This brings me to today.

Transport

An entire bus route of elementary school children did not get picked up today. Instead, they were sitting outside for 45 minutes when my children contacted me in panic tears and said the bus didn’t come. Like any parent, at first, I was questioning my kids… then worried for other children… then mad.

Why did I get mad?

Well, you see the RDCRS has a wonderful “app” that is supposed to notify parents if a bus is canceled or running late. But the status for the route said “On time”.

So I asked my kids if they missed the bus, they said no, because the other kids at their stop were there too.

When I picked up my children (and one of the neighbour’s kids after getting permission from her parent) we continued along the route and saw many more children waiting along the route. We pulled over to tell them to contact their parents as it appears there is no bus.

When I arrived with my children at the school I informed them of the issues. Now, to the school’s staff credit, the school responded quickly and the vice principal drove the route to check the safety of the kids.

However, when I called the transport office, which is owned and run by RDCRS, they stated that they “had a no-show and only found out now.” They still did not update the bus status on the app and this was one hour after the route was to begin.

Every employer has some sort of attendance system. Couriers use radios and GPS to track vehicles and routes. But somehow the RDCRS transport office doesn’t have a way to track if a driver showed up to work or not? Or if a bus is on a route or not?

Then what is the point of an app to notify parents if you don’t use it?

I’ve been relatively quiet publicly on these things, but today, when you put children safety at risk, it was the last straw.

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If Gender Equality is so important to Canadians, why do we not allow female Premiers a second term?
Many argue that historically parties in decline and doomed to electoral defeat elect a female leader to clean up their mess. When the mess gets tidied enough for a possible electoral win they replace the female with a male.
2 recent examples may be highlighted with British Columbia’s Christie Clark and Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne. Were they desperate measures for parties in decline? Yes according to polls at the time of their taking the reins.
Alberta’s Allison Redford could be another example but not Alberta’s current Premier, Rachel Notley.
With most cases, the women were elected leaders of governing parties, but not Alberta’s NDP Premier Rachel Notley. She became a party leader then became Premier through a provincial election.
She outshone her competition that was split on the right and many of her MLAs rode her coat tails to victory.
She cleaned up a lot of messes and unfinished business, so is it time to give the office back to a man? According to many talking heads on the television, it looks like we are.
So is gender equality really important to Canadians or are women here for cleaning up the messes of men and only arm candy for political parties desperate for the next win?
We have been slow to give women the right to vote, we have yet to give them income parity, we are still trying in some circles to control a woman’s right to control her own body, so will we ever allow a woman to have a second term as a Premier in Canada? I hope so.
I have argued with various ministries of this government, on issues like no high schools north of the river and plans for 5 high schools east of 30 Ave. in Red Deer. Basically thinking that they were identical to the previous 40 years of Conservative governments, on these issues.
Now it appears that this government has made progress on many other issues like minimum wage, environment, and pipelines, they are very different from the previous Conservative governments.
Based on skills, accomplishments, direction and many other things, I will consider voting for giving for the first time in Canadian history a second term as Premier to a female. GASP.