School Councils Stand for Education Hopeful Conversations
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT INPUT was FEBRUARY 17TH
Share a hopeful vision for public education generated by discussions in advance of the 2023 provincial election.
Share your wisdom and create a hopeful vision for public education in Alberta!
The Alberta School Councils’ Association (ASCA) is asking all school councils, regardless of ASCA membership status, to participate in the Stand for Education public engagement process to gather input from parents, educators, and others in the school community.
We want to hear from school councils about the top changes they would like to see the Alberta government make to improve education!
ASCA is working with the Alberta Teachers’ Association to collect and analyze public feedback. Based on the input received, a bold, hopeful vision for education will be developed, shared publicly, and used to engage all political parties in the lead-up to the provincial election in May, 2023.
ASCA is asking school councils to include a short, facilitated discussion (15 - 20 minutes) at an upcoming school council meeting to gather parent/guardian responses to the question –
"What are the solutions you would like to see the Alberta government implement to improve education for your children and/or school?”
Provide feedback at ASCA - Stand for Education Hopeful Conversations
To facilitate these discussions, we recommend the following process:
Prior to the meeting, ask your school council members to come prepared to share their top priority.
If you are hosting the meeting virtually, ask someone to help take notes to capture people’s input to the question.
Regardless of if you are hosting the meeting in-person or virtually, we suggest you start by giving people a couple of minutes to write their main idea on a note card/sticky note before everyone then shares their ideas in conversation.
Ask each parent/guardian at the meeting to share their top solution in less than one minute. This approach will help to make sure the conversation is not influenced by dominant speakers, and that you are able to gather the full diversity of input from your members. If there is enough time, invite others in attendance to contribute their ideas.
Once everyone has had an opportunity to share their ideas, if there is enough time left in your meeting, group the ideas into common themes, assuming there are similar solutions presented.
If it is not possible to complete the activity within the time frame due to a large number of people in attendance, please ask everyone to submit their responses via the online link below. Spend the remaining time hearing from a few people about their solutions.
After hosting these conversations we ask the School Council Chair (or a designate) to use the following weblink to provide the results of your school council’s feedback - ASCA - Stand for Education Hopeful Conversations.
