Edmonton's Enterprise - Edmonton Public Schools system

School Administrator, May, 2001 by Emery Dosdall

Our central-services staff also must understand what matters to parents and community groups. They must be familiar with school district policies, financial restraints and union groups to help develop programs that can receive board approval.

Relinquishing Authority

Parent and community groups that have fought to have their program developed and implemented can be extremely demanding. They want to oversee its implementation and are prepared to be vocal and demand results. For programs to be successful, principals and staff must be committed to their programs and be prepared to engage in ongoing dialogue with patent groups. Occasionally, these demands can't be met.

In one instance, a parent group insisted the school board and I relinquish to them authority to appoint the school's principal and that the principal relinquish authority to select staff. While I was prepared to have them submit criteria for the type of principal they wanted and allow them to have a representative on the interview teams, I was nor prepared to give them sole authority to make staffing decisions. They were not satisfied with the compromise and they began their own charter school.

This year, as part of our competitive response to charters, we launched a program with a similar philosophy right in the same neighborhood. We remain a serious competitor.

A Growth Mode

The debate around programs of choice continues and we ourselves occasionally question where we will draw the line. But until we do, we will continue to assess every proposal that comes forward.

We offer 29 different programs of choice at Edmonton Public Schools, and we've found they enable us to serve the diverse needs of children in our community. Although our city's population has remained relatively stable, our enrollment continues to grow. Students are attracted to our programs from across the province, and this past year we attracted more than 220 international students--most of them from Korea, Hong Kong and China--who pay $9,000 in tuition per year to attend.

Our commitment to run alternative programs has helped us to demonstrate that public education can provide a good fit for all students. Programs of choice have allowed us to improve student achievement and respond to the needs and interests of students, parents and teachers alike. They also can reduce conflict and increase cooperation. Two good examples of this are our Cogitoz and Caraway programs.

Teachers who prefer a teacher-directed pedagogy are ensured parent support for this in our Cogito program. In this program, the systematic teaching of phonics, spelling and grammar in language arts and the computational and problem-solving skills in mathematics are emphasized, as is the assignment of homework. Alternatively, the Caraway program is based on mixed-age groupings and integrated, thematically organized instruction. Parental involvement, a strong sense of community and creative approaches to learning are also encouraged.

Holding Accountable

If students and parents are interested in a particular type of schooling and our staff is committed to that approach, student achievement will improve. While we have no current empirical data that supports this claim, we have seen a positive trend in our student achievement results over the past six years.