Catholic trustees look at allowing termination appeals
By Jeremy Appel on December 12, 2018.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education agreed at its Tuesday meeting to look into allowing staff members who have been fired the right to appeal to the board. “It’s interesting, because some school divisions have terminations being the role of the superintendent or their representative, then there’s some that have grievances and full procedures and some that are unionized, and I have some non-unionized handbooks that have a whole grievance procedure,” said associate superintendent Chuck Hellman. Some boards have no mechanisms for appeal, which is currently the case for MHCBE, he added. “To me, it’s just a fairness principal,” said trustee David Leahy. “If you’re being terminated, that there’s some avenue for you to go where you have a right of appeal.” This would entail adding a clause in support staff’s contracts that says they have the right to appeal in the event of termination, Leahy said. The plan is for the clause to be added by September 2019. Curriculum implementation plan presented Hellman also presented the board with the timeline provided by Alberta Education for implementing the province’s updated K-4 curriculum. The new curriculum, which has been in the works since 2008, includes introducing Grade 2 students to the concept of consent, teaching kids about the arts as early as kindergarten and enhancing emphasis on Indigenous concepts, as well as promoting a more concept-based approach to learning as a whole. “It’s still in draft … but it’s moving forward,” Hellman said. The curriculum’s preparatory phase will occur from January to June 2019, which will determine how to go about testing it and what resources will be used. The early implementation, or pilot, phase will go from September 2019 to June 2020, but the province’s methodology for selecting schools, classes and teachers is unclear. MHCBE plans to pilot the curriculum in multiple schools. By September 2020, the curriculum is supposed to be fully implemented. The update to the Grades 5-9 curriculum is still in the works. 16
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