Calgary Parent Upset with Teacher Arranges Secret Recording in Classroom

From Global Calgary:

"A Calgary mother who says her child has been the victim of a bullying teacher now says she has the evidence to prove it.

After raising the problem with the principal of Grant MacEwan Elementary, she felt there was no resolution. Her next step was to send her son to his Grade 5 classroom with a recording device.

'We went from having a son excited and happy, to very worried and not sleeping at night and not wanting to go to school in the morning,' the mother told Global News. 'That’s when I noticed there was something I needed to look into.'

The device caught the following exchange between the teacher and another student.

Teacher: 'Can you stop making excuses? Did you call the teacher’s attention to say I was trying to write this and ask your neighbour? Did you talk to your neighbour?'
Student: 'Yeah.'
Teacher: 'Which neighbour?'
Student: 'Her- she said she didn’t know and I asked, and then I didn’t get the rest of it' (student crying)
Teacher: 'Oh, so keep crying, Prince. After you ask, I asked everybody to put a red strip on the top of their table if they needed help. Did anybody hear me say that?'
Class responds: 'Yes.'
Teacher: 'Where is your red strip?'
Student: 'I don’t know.'
Teacher: 'How then would I know you needed help? I am not a magician. Stop making me one or I will make you vanish.'

In other portions of the recording, the teacher was soft-spoken and encouraging to students.

Officials with the Calgary Board of Education say they cannot comment on the case because it is a personnel issue. They add they are aware of the concerns and have taken action to 'ensure the safety of students.'"

The tone of the teacher's voice portrays a clearer description of how the conversation was carried out.

Listen to the recorded conversation here.

Role of a Trustee

The following is an excerpt from an excellent article by Laura Shutiak for a group called Artics (Association for Responsible Trusteeship in Calgary Schools). In it, she examines the role of a trustee on the CBE board, shows examples of real transparency, and points out some of the differences in our trustees.

In mid-September, a few parents took to Twitter to thank Calgary Board of Education Trustee Joy Bowen-Eyre for helping them secure additional bike racks at their school. A picture of bikes stacked neatly by the school door accompanied the thank yous.

Why shouldn’t you pat your trustee on the back when you think he or she has been responsive to an issue?

Well, because securing resources for an individual school, whether it’s a computer, basketballs or bike racks, isn’t the job of a trustee.

Now, we don’t actually know what impact Bowen-Eyre had on this decision, if any. We also don’t know if there were other, more needy schools that missed out because of politics.
But, doesn’t it show there’s problem in the system when the principal couldn’t secure needed facilities for his or her school? Instead of handing out kudos, perhaps those parents should be demanding answers.

So, what is the role of a trustee? - Click here for the entire article.

Meet A Trustee Candidate

In 26 days municipal elections will be held in Calgary. We will be voting for a Mayor, 14 Councillors, 7 Public School Trustees and 7 Separate School Trustees - are you ready? Don't let the voting booth be the first place you see their names.

Since this is a school related blog, this post will be about the Public School Trustees in our area. There are seven trustees on the board, each representing two wards. Wilma Hansen is in Ward 14. Our present, long time trustee Carol Bazinet has announced her retirement from the board.

There are three declared candidates for Wards 12/14. They (and their websites) are:

Amber Stewart

Christina Steed 

Malik Amery

The Council and Parent Association will be meeting on Wednesday, October 16 at 7pm in the library. One of the candidates, Christina Steed, has asked to chat with us during the first part of our meeting. Plan on coming out and listening to Christina and asking her some questions about her candidacy.

Find out about all the candidates in our ward by reading their websites and sending them questions. The CBE Board of Trustees makes decisions daily that directly affect our children's education so your participation in this process couldn't be more important.

Teens, Phones, and Sleep

There has been a lot written in the press lately about cell phone usage among teens. One of the things that researches are helping us parents to worry about is cell phone usage at bed time. Screen brightness, late night texting, melatonin levels, snapchat anxiety, etc all seem to be contributing to our kids getting less sleep and/or lower quality sleep.

CBC recently reported:

The average teen should get nine hours of sleep, but the medical literature and research at SickKids suggest they get only about seven hours. - link.

The Better Health channel in Australia reports:

Adolescents (teenagers) need between nine and 10 hours of sleep every night. Regularly not getting enough sleep (chronic sleep deprivation) can affect a teenager's academic and sporting performance and may increase their risk of emotional problems such as depression. Even 30 minutes of extra sleep each night makes a difference. - link.

Dr. David Palmiter:

...three out of four teens report bringing their cell phones into their bedrooms at night, with 56% texting every night/almost every night... - link.

I suppose all this is applicable to adults as well, do you watch tv or read on a back lit electronic device at bed time? Maybe you're being affected too...

No More Grades on Report Cards?

A pilot project will be introduced in some Calgary schools next year eliminating numerical grades on report cards.  “Evident,” “emerging” or “support required” would replace "1 - 5" on reports to parents. There would be fewer (and maybe no) personal teacher's comments about our kids and reports would only be done twice per school year.

There hasn't been much, if any, public input about the project and even the trustees say they haven't been fully informed: click here.

Frank Bruseker, the ATA president has suggested that this would be a welcome change because teacher's wouldn't need to spend as much time on reporting student's progress. An interview with CBC can be heard here. David Grey at Calgary Eye Opener asks: "Are these changes about finding better ways to give parents feedback about how their kids are performing in school or are these changes about cutting down the workload for teachers"?

CAPC would like some help with parental response to this project. Please see this web page if you'd like to provide a voice.


From my point of view, teachers are going to spend a whole lot more time explaining to parents what 'emerging' means than if they just wrote down a 3.

CBE Board of Trustees Does Not Support Proposed Agreement

The following letter, written by Pat Cochrane, Chair for the CBE Board of Trustees, can be found on the CBE website or by clicking on the link below.

"Dear Calgarians,

You elected the Board of Trustees to represent you and the best interests of Calgary students. Your Trustees have been reviewing the proposed terms of an agreement for the province’s teachers since we saw it for the first time on Friday.

The proposed agreement is being promoted as a pathway to labor peace that holds the line on costs for three years. We do not believe that this will be the outcome of this agreement. The framework has obvious benefits for teachers and government. Benefits for students are conspicuously absent from the agreement. Based on our analysis, we conclude this is not a good deal for students. Consequently, your Board of Trustees cannot support the proposed agreement."

Read the full letter here.

Inverse Power of Praise

As you read over your child's marks, how do you respond? Do you praise her for her intelligence? Do you commend him on his efforts?

In the article, How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise, praising children too much  can have a negative effect on them.  Children who are constantly told by the adults in their life that they are smart may cause them to not want to try things they won't be successful at.  According to the article, a large percentage of all gifted students severely underestimate their own abilities and subsequently underrate the importance of effort.

The article suggests that "emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control...They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child's control, and it provides a no good recipe for responding to failure.". Those who can respond to failure with more effort next time and with persistence, rebound well and can sustain motivation longer. "A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they'll quit when the rewards disappear."

Read the full article here.

Thirteen Year Old Convinces Hasbro to Design a Gender Neutral Easy Bake Oven

I love this story:

A thirteen year old girl convinced Hasbro to design a gender neutral Easy Bake Oven. The teen's four year old brother wanted the toy for Christmas but was discouraged because the pink and purple design was clearly geared for girls. The thirteen year old started a petition on Change.org., asking Hasbro to offer a more gender-neutral color for the toy and to include boys in the commercials. The petition got more than 40,000 signatures. Hasbro has announced that the color change "has been in development over the past 18 months" and will become available next fall, 2013.

Watch the ABC News story here.

Helicopter Parents Infiltrate College, the Workplace and Beyond

From an article in Global Calgary:

“If you’re doing your eight-year-old’s homework, you’re going to end up doing your 18-year-old’s work."

"From policing college grades to calling in sick for their adult children at work, helicopter parents are keeping a closer and closer cruising altitude over emerging adulthood – that post-high school period at which previous generations began fending for themselves. "

"...the phenomenon of coddled 20-somethings is 'the downstream result of our fertility decisions and economic issues.'"

"...older Gen X’ers waited to have kids due to delayed career starts and financial instability, and ultimately had fewer children – leaving them more time to obsess over the youths’ personal successes and failures."

"...helicopter parenting may be robbing young people 'of the experiences necessary to develop skills that are essential for success in marriage, careers and adult social interactions.'"

“What you have is a generation who expects their parents to do things for them. And they expect that because their parents have always done things for them.”
“I wonder what would happen if we all stopped pushing our kids to succeed and just let natural selection run its course? Sort of like the housing bubble: let the whole thing burst instead of running around to tutors, after school programs, language lessons, and lining up to register for sports programs.”

Read the full article here.

Light Excericise Has Postive Mental Health Effects

In a recent study, lead by a registered psychologist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, light to moderate exercise had a measurable improvement on teens' psychosocial functioning.  Although the light, physical activity had little effect on teens' weight loss or change in body fat, it had a positive mental health effect on  the subjects.  The psychological improvements were particularly in "body image, perceived social competence, and perceived academic performance.”


Read the full story on Global News here.

Making Healthy Food Choices as a Family

Last Wednesday, Chatelaine‘s health editor Laurie Jennings was on Cityline, sharing tips for incorporating more nutrients into your daily menus. Some of her excellent suggestions included serving raw veggies with a healthy dip (kids will eat 80% more veggies if dip is also served), adding fibre (such as bulgar) to your meatball recipe, making a vegetarian "meat" sauce and having theme nights (from Mexican to Japanese to Indian) because they allow for different foods and nutrients.

Read more ideas and/or watch the short video here.

Discipline Decline at CBE

In an interview with recently retired Beaverbrook Principal Jeff Turner, he states that early intervention and quick decisive action is the key to a decline in expulsions over the years. According to the article: in 2007/8, principals recommended 364 expulsions system wide in contrast to just 107 last year. Mr. Turner went on to explain that principals weren't adopting a more lassez-faire attitude toward discipline but that there are more tools available for support.

"The big change: students with problems are now being spotted earlier, and worked with long before they derail and are booted from school. As a result, cases of major bad behaviour are dropping."

"What’s different is all the work that’s gone into preventing that student from reaching the point where they must be moved out of the school."

Where is Asia? ... Africa? ...Anyone?

Professor Judith Adler at Memorial University in Newfoundland teaches a family sociology course with a world wide perspective.  She was shocked to learn that some of her students didn't have a perspective of the world.  She started popping an elementary quiz asking her students to label a blank map with the continents; some failed... Read the whole story here.

Smartphone Contract: Great Idea or Mean Mom?

Contract excerpt article #17.  Keep your eyes up.  See the world happening around you.  Stare out a window.  Listen to the birds.  Take a walk.  Talk to a stranger.  Wonder without googling.

Writer Janell Burley Hofmann gave her child an iPhone for Christmas... and a contract - click here to read the whole thing and decide if she has a point.  Do your kids have clear boundaries with their smartphone?  Do you?  Some great ideas here and maybe some not so great - leave a comment, we'd love to hear your take.

The When, Why and How of Parenting Teens

From Calgary's Child Magazine:

"When something about your teenager is bothering you, stop and think for a moment before doing anything. Remember that adolescents take very unkindly to unnecessary intrusions into their business. Shooting from the hip can cause a lot of trouble.

You need to ask yourself two questions:

1. Does this problem really need my attention or intervention?
2. If it does, how involved should I try to get?"


Read the story here.

Some Follow Up From Workshops

Grade 8 CAWST Workshop

Six grade 8 students attended a workshop at the Safari Lodge at the Zoo November 7 to learn ways to promote responsible water usage locally and globally. They will be sharing this information with our feeder schools on December 6. The following students attended:

Devyn W, Skylar B, Gabby K, Taylor L, Abby G, Lyric A

A front foyer display will also be up in the next 2 weeks and posters have been placed above water fountains and in our washrooms at Wilma Hansen.

Grade 8 Destination Conservation Workshop

Six grade 8 students attended a workshop at Highfield Centre on November 8 in the afternoon to learn important facts about the food industry and the health implications for our world today. They will follow up this workshop with a poster campaign and presentations to their peers in grade 8 science classes. The following students attended:

Brooke B,Alexandra R,Megan B, Carrie J, Razan H, Anastasiya M

 WE DAY 

 

 Twenty two students attended the first ever We Day held at the Saddledome October 24. Special thanks to Darcy Whitaker for coming along as a parent volunteer. The day held amazing and motivating speakers , musical performances, cirque de soleil style acrobatics and video footage.

Students had to present a letter of application on why they should be chosen to fill the 22 spots and we had over 100 applications to sort through. The following students attended: 

Grade 8

Sara C, Devyn W, Lyric A, Megan B, Amelia C, Quinton M, Jakob B, Carrie J, Ayden I, Abby G, Skylar B

Grade 9

Abbey S, Brayden W, Nick S, Christian R, Nicole N, Jordan D,Mitchell S, Joel P,Mackenzie C, Callum M Danya W

The students will be speaking at our upcoming school assembly about their upcoming proposals and action projects.

Should Alberta Fund Private Schools?

Do you think your tax dollars should fund private schools?

Liberal MLA Kent Hehr said Monday that the province could save up to $50 million a year by stopping the subsidies. Hehr believes in the public system and states that although it is a right to not take part in the public school system, it is not a right for taxpayers to fund that choice.


Read the story here.

Anti-Bullying Program

On Tuesday, November 20, parents at Haultain Memorial School had the incredible opportunity to listen to an informative, interesting and helpful talk on bullying. Expert Lisa Dixon-Wells facilitated the session, Dare to Care: Bully Proofing Your Child. On a personal note, when I arrived at the school Tuesday evening, I was not looking forward to sitting in a chair, in the gym to listen to someone speak about one topic for over two hours. However, almost immediately after Lisa began to speak, I became completely engaged with every word she said.

The time flew by, as she spoke with so much knowledge, energy and passion. According to Lisa, the two biggest issues today surrounding bullying are, what she called, "the girl issue: the hidden culture of aggression" and cyberbullying. Before getting into details about the issues, Lisa clearly defined the meaning of bullying, pointing out that the word can be overused which, inevitably, minimizes the real issue. She also acknowledged that bullying is a learned behaviour from home and can be corrected if parents are open to work with their child.

Lisa addressed three major changes in bullying that has happened over the past twenty years. The first change is that children are presenting more challenging behaviors than before. The second change is the younger age at which bullying behavior is occurring in children. The final change in bullying Lisa pointed out is the maliciousness that now exists. Factors such as media, breakdown of families and breakdown of communities have contributed to these changes. The good news is that parents and communities have the power to control these factors and inevitably fight bullying.

An interesting segment of Lisa's talk was centred around, what she calls, "provocative victims." These are children who often are bullied or are misunderstood to be bullies themselves. A provocative victim is often gifted, bright, bored, complex, restless, academic and has a strong sense of fairness and justice. These children socially struggle and tend to be avoided by others because of their lack of understanding with concepts such as personal space and the ability to read body language and tone of voice. Provocative victims will often take a long time to explain things and may tend to make silly noises and gestures. Again, however, the good news is that parents have the power to help these children by teaching social skills. Lisa highly recommends the books, Nobody Likes Me Everybody Hates Me by Michele Borba and Perfect Targets by Brenda Smith Myles for parents of provocative victims.

Other books recommended by Lisa are Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons, for parents of girls and Odd Girl Speaks Out by Rachel Simmons, for girls of grade four and up. These books address the issue of bullying amongst girls. For parents of boys, Lisa recommends Real Boys, by William Pollack. She also highly recommends children, parents and educators see the movie, Odd Girl Out, available from amazon.com. Lisa suggested a website for parents, www.getwebwise, that breaks down the lingo children and teens are using with their digital communications. The site reveals the meanings of hundreds of acronyms now used for texting, on line chatting and emailing.

Lisa ended the talk by addressing a concrete formula victims of bullying can use. The acronym, "HA HA SO", stands for: Help, Assert, Humor, Avoid, Self Talk and Own It. Each word is a tool that victims can use in situations of bullying. Our children were taught these valuable tools when Lisa worked with them in the school. She had the students role play and practice the different techniques, depending on the bullying situation.

Thank you to Haultain's Parent Association for funding this invaluable program and thank you to Mrs. O'Connor for bringing the idea to the floor. Finally, thank you to Lisa Dixon-Wells for sharing the Dare to Care program at Haultain and teaching staff, students and parents the life changing skills, facts and concepts around the issue of bullying.

For more information on the Dare to Care program, go to www.daretocare.ca

No Zero Policy Discussed at ASBA Conference

ABSA (Alberta School Boards Association) held its fall general meeting yesterday. The association's conference runs November 18-20 in Edmonton. The public discussion was about student testing in the province. Albertans are being asked about testing and marks in schools, including what the appropriate assessment tools for students are and who should apply them.


Read more about the story on Global News: Global Edmonton | No-zero issue sparks larger discussion about student assessment in Alberta

DDQ Event

In conjunction with Health Services and others; the DDQ is hosting an event that includes a free Budget Management Workshop, holiday crafts, alcohol free holiday cocktails, resource information, holiday activity ideas, and a 'Mother Goose' reading time. It runs from 6-9 pm on November 28th at the Deer Run Community Association. Click here or on the thumbnail for the event poster.