Feedback on Draft Home Education Regulation Needed

To AHEA members and all Alberta home educators:

The Alberta government has released the draft version of the new Home Education Regulation. The Alberta Home Education Association asks that all AHEA members and all Alberta home educators voice their opinion on this draft regulation.

AHEA’s concern with the draft regulation comes from what ISN’T there.

In meetings and in surveys and in town halls during the last several years, home educators made it clear that there were three key issues:

– parental authority,
– less regulation, and
– the need to protect educational choice by providing for the continued existence of independent contracted home education specialists in a new regulation.

Here is the urgent issue with the draft regulation that needs your attention:

The existence of independent contracted home education specialists is under attack from Alberta Education bureaucrats and the continued presence of these specialists needs to be clearly addressed in the draft regulation.

Educational choice is decreased when parents have less choice in who administers their home education program. Parents have the authority to make choices, but if those choices are reduced then parental authority is also reduced.

The principle of ‘less regulation’ was recognized in the fact that the current regulation was kept largely the same. The draft regulation will also be in place for 10 years. These are both good things, but bureaucratic intrusion needs to be halted.

AHEA has a meeting with Education Minister Gordon Dirks on Tuesday January 27, 2015 where we will be raising these key concerns. We ask all AHEA members to voice their concerns before January 27th and to also be ready to speak up again after January 27th should our concerns not be addressed.

Please make your voice heard.
Please use the links in this email to respond to the draft Home Education Regulation.
 
Thank you.
 
Paul van den Bosch
President
Alberta Home Education Association

Home educators have until January 31st to respond using the government’s website link: http://education.alberta.ca/department/policy/education-act.aspx

To view the new draft Home Education Regulation, use this link to the Alberta Education website. Note that the Home Education Regulation begins on page 45.

To view the current regulation, use this link to the Alberta Queen’s Printer.

“An independent contracted home education specialist is an organization, such as Wisdom or Education Unlimited, who specializes in providing services and teachers to home education parents. Such specialists focus on providing individualized services to home educated students”.