Education
Kathleen Finnigan appointed new Superintendent of Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools
From Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools
Red Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools is delighted to announce the appointment of Mrs. Kathleen Finnigan as the division’s new Superintendent of Schools.
“Over the past four months, the Board of Trustees has been conducting a nationwide search for a new Superintendent of Schools. A key component of the process involved reaching out to key stakeholders to gather their thoughts and opinions regarding the new superintendent,” said Kim Pasula, Board Chair at Red Deer Regional Schools.
“The input received from the consultation, that involved engagement with all staff and parents and guardians in the Division, as well as key stakeholders from our broader community, was central to the recruitment and selection process.”
Finnigan has a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta, a Master of Education from San Diego State University and is currently working on a Doctorate of Education specializing in K-12 education leadership through the University of Calgary.
Finnigan grew up and graduated in Delburne, a small town east of Red Deer. She comes from a large farming family in which she is one of six girls along with one brother. Finnigan values community. She was taught the importance of community from her parents who were role models of servant leadership with their work in Delburne, Central Alberta and on the provincial scene. Finnigan believes in the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child” and is looking forward to working in a team to enhance the Red Deer Catholic community whereby students will continue to be the center of all decisions. Finnigan and her husband, Terry, have four boys all educated in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools.
Finnigan has 34 years of experience as a professional Catholic educator within the division in the roles as teacher, counsellor, school administrator and senior administrator. She has been part of five different school communities in Red Deer: St. Thomas Aquinas Middle School, Maryview School, Holy Family School, St. Martin de Porres School and St. Patrick’s Community School. Finnigan’s first principalship was at St. Martin’s where she worked in a team with a variety of stakeholders to develop the first fine arts school in Central Alberta.
For the past nine years, she has been a member of a senior leadership team holding the positions of Associate Superintendent of Inclusive Learning, Associate Superintendent of Personnel and Acting Superintendent of Schools. Finnigan will continue to foster gospel centred school communities of hope within our division through her connections with staff and stakeholders. She is an active member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church as proclaimer, eucharistic minister and children’s liturgy teacher.
Over the years, she has won many awards including Women of Excellence for Central Alberta (2016), Canada’s Outstanding Principal (2010), Alberta’s Excellence in Teaching Semi-Finalist (2009), Leadership Award from the Council of School Administrators (2001) and Health and Physical Education Award through the HPEC Council (1989).
At today’s Board Meeting, the Board of Trustees will vote on a motion to seek the approval of the Minister of Education to appoint Finnigan as Superintendent of Schools. As per the Education Act, the Minister of Education approves all Superintendent hires and contracts.
The employment of the former Superintendent was concluded by the Board of Trustees in February 2020 and at that time Finnigan was appointed Acting Superintendent of Schools. Since then, she has navigated the division through the COVID-19 pandemic (school closures, at-home learning and school re-entry of in-person learning) and the new funding model from Alberta Education.
“I am blessed to have been appointed Superintendent at Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools; a school division known for exemplary staff and school administrators working together to ensure that Christ is known to students while aspiring to excellence. Alongside the Board of Trustees and staff we will continue to foster gospel centred communities of hope through communication, collaboration, and innovation as we lead our school communities together,” said Superintendent, Kathleen Finnigan at Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools.
“Kathleen was chosen in a highly competitive selection process from a strong field of candidates. She is a highly impressive talent known for her collaborative leadership style that will serve her and our entire staff well in advancing the mission of Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools to make Christ known to children,” said Pasula.
Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools serves over 10,360 students in 20 schools in Red Deer, Blackfalds, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds, as well as an at-home learning program. It also supports the learning of over 1095 students in a Traditional Home Education Program. The Division is committed to serving children and parents with a complete offering of learning opportunities delivered within the context of Catholic teachings and within the means of the Division.
News release from The Democracy Fund
TDF and James Kitchen Defend School Board Trustee Monique LaGrange
Briefs were filed in Monique LaGrange’s case on the week of April 8, 2024.
RED DEER: The Democracy Fund (TDF) has partnered with lawyer James Kitchen to represent former school board trustee Monique LaGrange as she takes The Board of Trustees of Red Deer Catholic Separate School Division to court for kicking her off the Board because they took offence to one of Ms. LaGrange’s social media posts.
Mr. Kitchen filed two applications for judicial review in December 2023, challenging the Board’s decisions to penalize Mrs. LaGrange and disqualify her from sitting on the Board. Mr. Kitchen has now filed his briefs, which lay out in detail how the Board’s decisions are procedurally unfair and unreasonable and should be overturned by the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta.
The two judicial reviews will be heard virtually by a Red Deer judge over the course of a three-day hearing on May 1-3, 2024, starting at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, May 1. Members of the public are encouraged to attend by accessing this link.
In Alberta, judicial reviews are heard on the basis of a record of documents compiled and submitted to the Court by the decision-maker, which is supposed to include everything presented to the decision-maker at the time the decision was made. In this case, Mrs. LaGrange had submitted to the Board 33 pages of emails and letters from Albertans who supported her. At first, the Board failed to provide these supportive emails and letters to the Court, but that changed when Mr. Kitchen filed an application to compel the Board to do so. Redacted versions of these emails and letters, which are also quoted at length in the briefs, can be viewed here, starting at page 113 of 169.
Mrs. LaGrange was democratically elected to the Board in 2021. Despite this, the Board expelled her because she allegedly failed to comply with sanctions imposed on her by the Board in September 2023 for posting a meme to her Facebook account that some people found offensive. The impugned meme depicted two side-by-side photographs, one of children holding swastika flags and the other of children holding pride progress flags. The meme, which drew much support but also some disapprobation from the community, included a caption stating, “Brainwashing is brainwashing.”
The Board asked Mrs. LaGrange to apologize for the meme, which she declined to do because she believed she had done nothing wrong. In speaking to the Western Standard, Mrs. LaGrange stated, “I was elected to stand up and protect our children, and that is what I am doing.” Among other things, the Board, on September 26, 2023, ordered LaGrange to undergo sensitivity training at her own expense for allegedly breaching their code of conduct by posting the meme and to refrain from making public comments about sexual minorities in her official capacity as a Trustee.
The Board subsequently alleged Mrs. LaGrange had breached some of these sanctions and voted to disqualify Mrs. LaGrange as a trustee.
TDF and lawyer James Kitchen have chosen to defend Mrs. LaGrange to defend the free speech rights of all Canadians, especially in the context of statements made by democratically elected representatives.
To support Mrs. LaGrange, please consider making a tax-deductible donation on this page.
About The Democracy Fund:
Founded in 2021, The Democracy Fund (TDF) is a Canadian charity dedicated to constitutional rights, advancing education, and relieving poverty. TDF promotes constitutional rights through litigation and public education and supports access to justice initiatives for Canadians whose civil liberties have been infringed by government lockdowns and other public policy responses to the pandemic.
From the Fraser Institute
Instead of making every effort to protect instructional time and ensure that schools remain open, students are being sent home for ever more dubious reasons.
Schools are closed out of an “abundance of caution.” No doubt you’ve heard this phrase many times over the last few years. It was commonly used during the pandemic when provincial governments closed schools for months on end—even after it was widely known that COVID-19 posed little risk to most children.
Ontario schools were closed for 135 days during the pandemic, more than any other province. Parents and teachers are still trying to recover from this enormous learning loss. Clearly, this was one situation where an abundance of caution caused more harm than it prevented.
Sadly, it appears that provincial officials and school board administrators haven’t learned from their mistakes. Instead of making every effort to protect instructional time and ensure that schools remain open, students are being sent home for ever more dubious reasons.
For example, school boards across Ontario cancelled classes on April 8, the day of the solar eclipse. Apparently administrators felt there was too great a risk that students might look at the sun during the eclipse and damage their eyes. No doubt more than a few of them glanced at the sun while sitting at home that day. However, there was no need for the school closures to be as total as the eclipse. If they were really that concerned, school officials could have kept students indoors or simply altered the dismissal times.
Initially, the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) took a common sense approach by stating that schools would remain open and teachers would use the eclipse as a learning opportunity for students. Then, only days before the eclipse, the WRDSB suddenly reversed itself and said their schools would indeed close on April 8, and students would have the opportunity to engage in “asynchronous remote learning” instead.
This decision sent the unfortunate message that WRDSB trustees are incapable of standing up to pressure from people who think that schools must close at the slightest sign of real or presumed danger. As for the notion that remote learning was an adequate substitute, our experience during the pandemic showed that for most parents and students, remote learning was thin gruel indeed.
As a further sign of how far paranoia has crept into the education system, some teacher unions demanded they too should be able to work from home during the eclipse. For example, Jeff Sorensen, president of the Hamilton local teacher union, said, “If it’s not safe for children [to be at school], then it’s not safe for adults.”
The union representing Toronto’s Catholic teachers made a similar request. In a memo to its members, local union president Deborah Karam said the union was “intensifying our efforts” to ensure that teachers be allowed to complete their professional development activities at home that day. Surprisingly, no union leader has yet explained why teachers would be less likely to look at the sun while at home than at school.
Of course, school boards must focus on education while also looking out for the wellbeing of students. But there’s more to student wellbeing than simply shielding them from all perceived risks. Extended school closures cause considerable harm to students because they lead to significant learning loss.
By normalizing the practise of closing schools at the slightest sign of danger, real or perceived, we risk raising a generation of young people who lack the ability to do a proper risk assessment. Life itself comes with risk and if we all took the same approach to driving a car that school boards take to school closures, would never set foot in a vehicle again.
Ontario students had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a solar eclipse in an educational environment, guided by their teachers. While some parents no doubt taught their children about the eclipse, many others had to be at work.
By closing schools out of an “abundance of caution,” school boards sent the message that school is not a place where unique educational events can be experienced together. Students should be in school during events such as the eclipse, not sitting at home.
If we’re going to exercise an abundance of caution, let’s be a lot more cautious about the risks of closing schools at the drop of a hat.
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