We’ve been very busy over the past few months and finally have a little time to report on our doings!

We’ve had politicians to catch up with.  Our Executive Director has been traveling around the Province, giving talks to groups of concerned parents.  We’ve even held the first training session for people looking to get involved in the next School Board Elections.

Here are our summer accomplishments:

1. We have published several columns (all in the Western Standard this time). You can read all of our columns here.
2. In response to widely felt concerns that our school boards have been overtaken by radical activists, we have created workshops on how to run for school board trustee. We started running these workshops during the last school board elections, with impressive success.  We’ve already run the first one for the next election season – 18 people came out in Lloydminster!
3. Over 400 people have heard our talk on the Pillars of Educational Choice at meetings for local advocacy groups. We’ve also met with local parents’ groups to discuss how they can be better advocates for their children.
4. Our Executive Director has given some interviews for podcasters. You can view the interview with Laura-Lynn here, and RH Media here.
5. Our Executive Director has met with a number of politicians over the past months. This has included a number of trustees for different school Boards and MLAs, as well as the new Minister of Education.

Here’s what we hope to do this fall:

• We’re continuing our election training workshops. They’re pitched both at prospective candidates and ordinary Albertans who want to learn how to get good people into office. You can sign up here for the September Workshops in Calgary and Edmonton. You can also ask us to run a training session in your area! Just send us a message at [email protected]
• We’re hoping to convince the government to pass a Parental Rights Act, similar to the policy recently implemented in Saskatchewan. Our Executive Director had a positive conversation with the Minister of Education on the subject in a recent meeting. However, much remains to be done!

• We hope to convince more and more school boards to drop their secrecy policies. That’s something you can help with! Please print out, sign and send us this Petition to End Secrecy. We have over a thousand signatories so far.  Our goal is to get 5000 petitions printed and signed, so that we can get it presented in the Legislature of Alberta – with copies to every school board.

If you’re not currently a financial supporter of PCE, we hope that you will take the opportunity to sign up for a small monthly contribution.  For the cost of a cup of coffee, you can help to convince school boards to keep parents in the loop, make sure that school choice is adequately funded, and help local people organize to push for parental rights and improve school boards.  You will make a real difference in the lives of families in Alberta and across Canada.

The Parents for Choice in Education Team