The writ hasn't yet dropped for the Alberta election but when it does the Rocky View School Division is ready to help parents and other stakeholders to ask the candidates tough questions about their plans for education, should they be elected.  

The Advocacy Committee has come up with a series of questions, that were recently approved by the entire board, that they hope will ensure election candidates have education issues at the top of their minds.

School Board Chair Todd Brand says the committee came up with four, non-partisan questions that people in RVS schools can ask of candidates in reference to education.  Brand explains, "We've put together a little bit of a postcard campaign, it's very much non-partisan, and it's questions that really directly tie into our own advocacy positions that we've come up with and we've put them in a form that will be distributed particularly to our school council members and encouraging them when they have candidates come to their door they can ask them about these, and of course whatever other education questions are on their minds."

Brand says they're hoping that people will also ask personal questions about education of the candidates but the Advisory Committee felt it was important to give people a starting point.  The four questions developed for the postcard are important from a Rocky View perspective.  They are, 

If elected, how will you ensure:

  • every student in the province is funded equitably?
  • the mental health of students is supported?
  • supports exists for increasingly complex and diverse classrooms?
  • new schools are built for growing jurisdictions

Brand says the last question is always at the top of the Rocky View list.  "As everyone in Rocky View knows, we still are in need of many more school builds over the next few years."

Brand notes that it was difficult to boil the questions down to just four.  "The committee had a hard time with that to be honest.  There were some questions we thought were worth asking, perhaps, but we thought by asking them it could too much be leaning toward one or another particular party and we wanted to be careful not to do that."

When the election is called the postcards will be distributed to the 50 school councils in the division and will be available at the Education Centre in Airdrie.  

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