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Red Deer Catholic Regional School Board approves balanced budget and 2.9% student enrollment increase

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News release from Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools

The Board of Trustees approve the 2023/2024 school year budget and Division Education Plan

On Friday, May 26, the Board of Trustees approved the 2023-2024 school year budget and the 2023-2026 Division Education Plan – Year Two Implementation Adjustments, at their Regular Board Meeting.

2023-2024 Budget:

The Board of Trustees approved a balanced budget with a projected increase in student enrollment of 2.9 per cent. Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) strives to maintain a fiscally responsibleĀ  budget with the main goal of ensuring our resources are directed toward having the greatest impact in the classroom and continue to provide a quality, faith-based education to students.

ā€œThe 2023-2024 school year budget is reflective of the Board’s continued focus on innovation, strategic planning, mental wellness and permeation of our faith,” said Board Chair, Anne Marie Watson at Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools. ā€œIn addition to these priorities, the Board of Trustees and Senior Administration worked collaboratively to ensure budget decisions were also aligned with the Division Education Plan, Strategic Development Plan and the areas of focus provided by Alberta Education.ā€

The 2023-2024 budget will be submitted to Alberta Education on May 31, 2023.

Division Education Plan:
RDCRS is currently in the second year of the 2023 – 2026 Division Education Plan. This plan guides the strategic direction and supports the three Board of Trustees Strategic Imperatives, including:

  • Mental health and safety

  • Purposefully, tangibly, and visibly demonstrate our faith, and

  • Build a workplace culture of engagement, empowerment and innovation

The Division Education Plan was drafted following active engagement with community stakeholders in central Alberta, utilizing interviews to help develop these board priorities and link these with the Division Education Plan. Moving forward, RDCRS will continue to engage with, and prioritize, RDCRS community partners and stakeholders through a collaborative approach to foster successful teaching and learning outcomes. To view the approved Division Education Plan, please click here.

Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools serves over 10,085 students in 21 schools in Red Deer, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds. It also supports the learning of over 600 students in a 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.

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Alberta

Alberta poll shows strong resistance to pornographic material in school libraries

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

A government survey revealed strong public support, particularly among parents, for restricting or banning sexually explicit books.

Albertans are largely opposed to their children viewing pornography in school libraries, according to government polling.

In a June 20Ā press release, the Government of Alberta announced that their public engagement survey, launched after the discovery of sexually explicit books in school libraries, found that Albertans strongly support removing or limiting such content.

ā€œParents, educators and Albertans in general want action to ensure children don’t have access to age-inappropriate materials in school libraries,ā€ Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Education and Childcare, said.

ā€œWe will use this valuable input to guide the creation of a province-wide standard to ensure the policy reflects the priorities and values of Albertans,ā€ he continued.

READ:Ā Support for traditional family values surges in Alberta

TheĀ survey, conducted between May 28 to June 6, received nearly 80,000 responses, revealing a widespread interest in the issue.

While 61 percent of respondents said that they had never previously been concerned about children viewing sexually explicit content in libraries, most were opposed to young children viewing it. 34 percent said children should never be able to access sexually explicit content in school libraries, while 23 percent believed it should be restricted to those aged 15 and up.

Similarly, 44 percent of parents of school-aged children were supportive of government regulations to control content in school libraries. Additionally, 62 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that ā€œparents and guardians should play a role in reporting or challenging the availability of materials with sexually explicit content in school libraries.ā€

READ:Ā Alberta Conservatives seeking to ban sexually graphic books from school libraries

At the time, Nicolaides revealed that it was ā€œextremely concerningā€ to discover that sexually explicit books were available in school libraries.

The books in question, found at multiple school locations, areĀ Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe;Ā Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato;Ā Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; andĀ Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

 

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David Clinton

Why Are Ontario’s Public Schools So Violent?

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The AuditĀ David Clinton's avatarĀ David Clinton

Ontario’s Auditor General just released aĀ performance audit on the Toronto District School Board. I’m sure it’ll surprise exactly no one that ā€œfinancial and capital resources are not consistently allocated in the most cost-effective or efficient wayā€ or that ā€œThe effective management of operations was not always being measured and assessed for internal decision-makingā€.

And there was plenty of institutional chaos:

“Between 2017/18 and 2022/23…about 38% of TDSB schools did not report conducting the minimum number of fire drills required by the Ontario Fire Code annually, and about 31% of TDSB schools did not report conducting the minimum number of lockdown drills required by TDSB policy annually. The TDSB does not have an effective process to ensure the required number of drills are performed by each school, each year, or that they are performed in accordance with TDSB policy when performed.”

What else would you expect from a massive government bureaucracy that employs 40,000 people, spends $3.6 billion annually and – based on many of the highlighted itemsĀ on their websiteĀ – is laser-focused on pretty much anything besides education?

What you might not have seen coming was that around half of the report centered on in-school violence. To be sure, we’re told that there were only 407 violent events reported to the board during the 2022/2023 school year – which is a rate of around 17 events for every 10,000 students. 17:10,000 doesn’t exactly sound like an environment that’s spiraling out of control.

There was a caveat:

“Due to input errors by principals, the TDSB underreported the number of violent incidents that occurred between 2017/18 to 2021/22 to the Ministry by about 9%.”

Ok. But we’re still nowhere near Mad Max levels of violence. So what’s attracting so much of the auditor’s attention? Perhaps it’s got something to do with a couple of recent surveys whose results don’t quite match the board’s own records. Here’s how the audit describes the first of those:

“The 2022/23 TDSB Student and Parent Census was responded to by over 138,000 students, parents, guardians and caregivers. It showed that 23% of students in Grades 4 to 12 that responded to the survey said they were physically bullied (e.g., grabbed, shoved, punched, kicked, tripped, spat at), and about 71% stated they were verbally bullied (e.g., sworn at, threatened, insulted, teased, put down, called names, made fun of). Further, about 14% of student respondents indicated they had been cyberbullied. TDSB’s central tracking of all bullying incidents is much lower than this, suggesting that they are not centrally capturing a large number of bullying incidents that are occurring.”

“23% of students in Grades 4 to 12 that responded to the survey said they were physically bullied”. That’s not a great fit with that 17:10,000 ratio, even if you add the 9 percent of underreported incidents. And bear in mind that these students and their families were willing to discuss their experiences in a survey run by the school board itself, so it’s not like they’re hard to find.

But that’s not the worst of it. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) ran their own survey in 2023. They wanted to hear about their members’ experiences with workplace violence. Here, quoting from the audit report, is what TDSB respondents told them:

  • 42% had experienced physical force against themselves in 2022/23;
  • 18% had experienced more than 10 of these physical force incidents in 2022/23;
  • 81% indicated the number of violent incidents increased since they started working;
  • about 77% responded that violence was a growing problem at their school;
  • about 29% indicated they had suffered a physical injury;
  • 57% had suffered a psychological injury/illness (such as mental stress, psychological or emotional harm) as a result of workplace violence against them; and
  • about 85% indicated that violence at their school made teaching and working with students more difficult.

29 percent of teachers suffered a physical injury due to workplace violence. That’sĀ elementary school teachersĀ we’re talking about.

For perspective, even accounting for the 9 percent underreporting, the TDSB was aware of events impacting less than a quarter of a percentage point of their students (and apparently didn’t report any violence against teachers). But by their own accounts, 23 percent of all students and 42 percent of elementary teachers have suffered attacks. Are board officials willfully ignoring this stuff?

And if only there was some way to address violence and other criminal activities on school property. Perhaps – and I’m just spitballing here – there could even be people working in schools whose job it would be to (what’s the word I’m looking for?)Ā policeĀ crime.

On a completely unrelated note, back in November, 2017, theĀ Toronto District School Board voted 18-3 to permanently end their School Resource Officer (SRO) program. Since then, police officers have been unwelcome on board property.

To be sure, the TDSB has ā€œacceptedā€ all 18 of the report’s recommendations. But talk is cheap. Who’s to say that commitment won’t play out the same way we’ve seen with their fire drill compliance.

Can you spell ā€œclass action lawsuitā€?

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