By AHEA
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AHEA has confirmed that the Education Act will be reintroduced into the legislature in the fall sitting. The PC government caucus will be meeting on Wednesday, September 5 to make key decisions, one of them being if the AHRA will be embedded into the Education Act.  While home schoolers have done a significant amount of work already, it is urgent that we act again, prior to Wednesday, September 5, 2012.

 

Please contacting your MLA directly or writing a letter/e-mail.  In the letter to your MLA, please consider including the following points:

 

- We are aware that the Education Act will be reintroduced this fall

-  We want all references to the Alberta Human Rights Act to be removed from the Education Act

-  We take human rights very seriously and teach respect, consideration for all people, and individual human rights.  We believe that hate crimes need
to be addressed, and the Federal Criminal Code legislation is the appropriate place to deal with these serious offenses. Embedding the Alberta Human Rights Act into the Education Act is NOT the appropriate place to do this.

- The Alberta Human Rights Act is an over arching legislation.  The imbedding of this and any other legislation into the Education Act is redundant, unnecessary and inappropriate.

- Recommended wording to for the Respect clause:

 

Respect 16

Education programs offered and instructional materials used in schools must not promote or foster doctrines of racial or
ethnic superiority or persecution, religious intolerance or persecution, social change through violent action or disobedience of laws.

(this clause is virtually identical to the second half of the previous section as it was written in the old Schools Act)

 

-     Parents’ Paramount Rights in the education of their children needs to be clearly stated so the integrity of freedom in this province is preserved and maintained.

-     The reference to “informed decisions” by parents is alarming and offensive.  This term is used in the legal and medical fields to require a party with superior knowledge/expertise to act in a fiduciary capacity to advise clients and ‘seek their instruction’ toward advocating on a client’s behalf.  This type of language implies that parents are NOT foremost in autonomy or authority, but needing advice from a ‘superior authority’ with more advanced knowledge or expertise in order to make decisions about their children’s education.   Again, this is alarming and offensive in the realm of parental authority in education.

 

Please contact your MLA this week as the government caucus is meeting on Wednesday September 5, 2012 to make key decisions.

 

Please send letters/e-mails to:

- your MLA

- cc copies to

    Premier Redford [email protected]

    Deputy Premier Lukaszuk  [email protected]

    Education Minister Jeff Johnson [email protected]

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