Alberta Home Education Association

  Done!!

1.  Notification Only – No Funding. The expansion of home education notification to include this option for parents is especially gratifying after all the years that home educators have asked AHEA to advocate for it. The opportunity to press in on this issue with the introduction of the Choice in Education Act was fully utilized. We made a case for the validity of the choice, trusting parents, and the fiscal savings.
   • How it will work – Parents will provide a Notification form directly to the Minister, understanding that in doing so they forfeit the claim to the $850 grant they would be entitled to if they would have notified with an associate board. They have initially said that parents will need to send in an Education Plan annually, for information only, with no further review or supports provided to them, but we continue to work on this portion. This will be effective for the 2020/21 school year. More details will follow, but you can read the Minister's official news release here.
2. Reduction of Receipts Required For Refund of Parental Grant. Parents will be required to submit receipts that equal only 75% of their grant of $850 in order to receive all of it. This will allow parents to stop worrying about purchases at a garage sale or from a friend. You must submit $637.50 worth of receipts before the deadline in order to qualify for the entire grant.
3. Receipts Can Be Dated Up To August 31st. Parents can claim purchases up to this cutoff date for the 2020/21 school year. This standardized date should help all parents have equal access to their funding and not be driven by individual associate board policies. This is the same for everyone no matter who you are with if you are under the home education regulations.
4. Funds Left Unspent Will Be Clawed Back. Any funding that you as a parent do not spend will be returned for Alberta Education to use these savings in another way. There will be no ability to 'donate or leave funds' with the associate board you notified with. Parents will either receive all of their part of the $850 grant or a portion. Any unspent portion will be returned to AB Education at the end of the year, after the August 31^st receipt deadline. This eliminates associate boards pooling the parent portion of unused funds for any other purpose.
5. The Final Count Deadline. We are pleased that this date will remain the same for the home education community, although not for other educational models. This means that you can notify as a home educator until September 30th, as usual.

TO-DO LIST! 

1. Multi-Year Claims – Currently home educators have generally experienced the ability to roll-over their funds to the following year if not fully utilized by advising their associate board, who they have notified with. At this time the changes to the funding manual by the department have reduced our spending time to a single year. We have highlighted this for the Minister's reconsideration, as we had asked for three years to allow for budgeting for larger items.
2. Standards of Reimbursement – This is currently under discussion, as it has been an ongoing concern of AHEA members. We have highlighted this for the Minister's consideration after discussing it with the department and hope to see some movement on the guidelines that are unnecessarily concerned with percentages being broken down for the small amount of funding available to home education families.
3. Funding for Special Needs Students Who Choose to Home Educate – We find it grievous that the special needs student who is home educated is deprived of all taxpayer funding dollars that are available if they were in a different educational model. We have been bringing this up in multiple meetings with the department and the Minister, advocating for a funding solution to be found. Parents, who are home educating because they feel it is the best environment for their child, and are taxpayers too, should not be lacking all real forms of support and services, as is currently the case. Efforts will continue in this vein until we are heard and some form of initial progress for this vulnerable segment of our community has been reached. We remain hopeful that the intent is not to take away from these children and their families but that there has not been sufficient effort in finding a way to make it happen. This is doable, and we will not give up in reaching an understanding with Alberta Education on these student's behalf.
4. A Healthy Competitive Environment for Parents to Choose From – AHEA's job is to advocate for our membership and advance the cause of home education in Alberta. While AHEA clearly cannot be representing the interests of associate boards, since our parents are required to notify with them, it is in our interests to help ensure that a market driven equality exists. Parents should have the ability to see plainly their available funding dollars and the financial policy for whatever model they choose publicly stated and be able to focus more on the services, relationship and a good fit being offered by any associate board they are considering. Financial information shouldn't be a mystery.

The shift to a weighted moving average for the other educational models (which we negotiated out of this year) have meant that associate boards are experiencing a rather big shift in how they can manage their administrative and operating costs. AHEA has no role to play in how their finances play out, except to have made this apparent to AB Education - without an even playing field, as home education relates to the shared responsibility (blended) model, access to home education could be reduced if the associate boards cannot survive or thrive. How you are coded matters! Shared responsibility can be a confusing model for parents to consider and navigate as the funding seems to shift situationally and the teaching responsibility between parents and teachers can lack transparency. This grey area has been manipulated in the past and we are supporting efforts to bring clarity to the situation for the sake of parents, who need to have information plainly stated to make a good and fair decision. Boards that incentivize parents to leave home education, because of the promise of additional dollars for their child, will themselves plan on collecting on a substantially greater amount. Therefore parents should make sure that the parental responsibility and funding dollars correctly applying to them is abundantly clear. The health of the home education model, and its supports, lies with parents who understand the difference.

Ongoing advocacy is the year-round work of AHEA that parents may not always be aware of. The results of this continuous work can result in a peaceful experience for the home educator who has no idea of the bullets dodged, or can be the means by which a battle-cry is sounded to preserve this unique and amazing opportunity for our children and families. Either way, your vested interest in staying informed, and supporting this work, makes your life choice possible!

AHEA is very pleased to announce that the proposed Bill 15 Choice in Education Act, tabled today in the AB Legislature, will make significant steps in affirming parental choice. This work was the result of a platform mandate, as well as the processing of over 50,000 survey responses from Albertans. Home educators made significant efforts in responding and our voice, at 5.3% of the respondents, considering our volume, was noteworthy, showing that approx. 25% of home educators were active in this government survey of the community. This speaks to the active civil engagement that is so important to home educators.

Minister LaGrange has said, "If passed, the bill will amend the Education Act to affirm that parents, not politicians, have the right to choose the kind of education they feel is best for their children. It will strengthen Alberta's successful history of education choice, including public and separate schools, francophone schools, charter schools, independent (private) schools, home education and early childhood education."

Highlights of the changes significant to home education are as follows:

• It adds a statement from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (section 26.3) to the preamble of the Education Act that states, "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."
• It adds a statement to the preamble of the Education Act:
  WHEREAS the Government of Alberta recognizes: public schools, separate schools, francophone schools, private schools, charter schools, early childhood services programs, the provision of alternative programs, and home education programs as being valued and integral in providing choice in education to students and parents.
• It amends the Home Education Programs section of the Education Act (section 20) to allow for an unsupervised, notification-only, non-funded home education program.
  Annual notification of the intent to homeschool will be required as well as submission (not approval) of a home education plan/program that demonstrates sufficient opportunity to achieve, to an acceptable level, appropriate learning outcomes.
  
  

We are gratified to see the steps taken today will strengthen a parent's inherent ability to care for their child's best interests. It should also put to rest the validity of that interest being intertwined with their child's, and not at odds with it.

You may read the full Alberta News Release here.

Background

The Minister of Education has invited parent and guardian input on the draft ministerial order on student learning to help shape the direction of education by February 24th, 2020 which will be in place for the 2020/2021 school year. It will replace the current ministerial order from 2013. This draft was the result of the Curriculum Advisory Panel (CAP) that AHEA met with last year. (Members can read about our meeting in our last HOME Matters edition – available online.) This committee has provided recommendations to Minister LaGrange on the direction of Alberta's K-12 curriculum and priorities. The previous curriculum work has been paused to ensure that it meets with the updated ministerial order.

As home educating parents, it is important to keep fully informed and involved in education in Alberta. Anything 'education' – we care about participating in! Our presence and input can keep the Minister aware of our care and concern for our greater community and the priorities of Albertans. We believe in the rights of all parents in the province to contribute to what is understood in the Education Act to be the "visions, principles and values" that "are the foundation of the education system in Alberta."

If parents want to be heard, and AB Education is looking for your input, you will have to speak up. You should prepare a response in advance, as on-the-spot answers may be more difficult to provide. 

The Minister has provided several imminent opportunities for you to share your opinion of this draft order. Please consider participating in one of the following:

• Virtual Parent Sessions
  • February 19, 1:30-3 pm - English | French
  • February 20, 7-8:30 pm - English | French
    
    

• Online Survey
  
  
• Written Survey in English or French
  • Email them in to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or mail them to:
  • Executive Director, Curriculum Coordination and Implementation
    Alberta Education
    9 Floor, 10044 108 Street, 44 Capital Boulevard
    Edmonton, AB T5J 5E6
    

• In Person Sessions – I was specifically told that if you want to go to one of the in person sessions, which are table discussions, you should attend even if it says it is full, as they are set up for overflow. The in person sessions have a high turnout by teachers (who are also parents, I realize) that have come prepared with their ATA suggested comments/responses.
  • Feb. 18^th – Calgary is FULL, but address is Sandman Hotel, 8001 11th Street SE
  • Feb. 19^th – Calgary can register here. Edmonton can register here.

You need to read the draft in full to consider your responses to the following questions:

1. Having read the draft Ministerial Order on student learning, does it accurately represent the goals for student learning in Alberta?
   (Y or N) (Why/why not?)
   
   
2. What are the strengths of the draft Ministerial Order on Student Learning? 
   (Why do you consider these strengths?)
   
   
3. What are the gaps in the draft Ministerial Order on Student Learning?
   (Why is it important to address these gaps?)

If you would like to know more about what the CAP Recommendations on Direction for Curriculum to Minister LaGrange, read their report here. This is actually very helpful in understanding the basis for the draft Ministerial Order. 

While most school work is wrapping up, Hon. Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange is getting down to business after these first few weeks of settling into her office and up to speed. She continues to have as her Deputy Minister Curtis Clark, who has been in this ministry for quite some time.

The UCP had promised pre-election to read in the Education Act that had already passed the required three readings and was ready to be enacted. However, it will not be introduced as is. This Monday, the Minister is scheduled to introduce Bill 8 – Education Amendment Act, 2019 with a second reading scheduled for this Thursday afternoon. What will these amendments entail? We have yet to find out.

What we do know is that everyone is brushing up on their familiarity with the Education Act. Interestingly, the President of the Public School Board's Assoc. for Alberta is publically calling on the Minister to delay the implementation for 1 year, as they would like more time to review it and further consultations. The issue of growth funding for increased student counts is looming large as well, and that is anticipated to be tackled on Monday as well with Bill 6 being introduced – the Appropriation (Interim Supply) Act, 2019 by Hon. Minister of Finance Travis Toews. Again, we shall see.

The AHEA Board is reviewing the Education Act and looking forward to seeing what type of amendments Minister LaGrange is going to table. This will be a revealing indication of the direction that she is going to pursue. I encourage you to be in prayer for us as we look to advance the interests of home education and resist bad law being enshrined. We also ask that you pray for Minister LaGrange, that she is able to be a strong advocate for the parental rights and responsibilities that she has worked so hard on over the years.

Adriana LaGrange - AB Minister of Education

Jason Kenney's choice for Education Minister was greatly anticipated since the news that the people of Alberta elected a UCP majority government. Tuesday's revelation that this post was going to be filled by Adriana LaGrange, a MLA from Red Deer, was greeted with enthusiastic support by the members of the home education community. As a mother of seven children, which include a set of identical twins, and grandmother of three, Minister LaGrange has a strong connection to family that our home education community can relate to. She is also a role model to young ladies as the second female Education Minister of Alberta. The passion and strength she has already demonstrated in her work as a Trustee of the Red Deer Catholic Regional School Division and as the President of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association, confirm she is someone who is a seasoned defender of choice and parental rights. These shared foundations give us a common base to work and collaborate from.  

AHEA looks forward to working with Minister LaGrange in her new role and congratulates her on her appointment!