Parents for Choice in Education is very pleased to introduce one more tool that parents can utilize to advocate about instruction their children receive regarding sexuality in school. This tool is a form you can fill out as a parent and deliver to your school. It requests notification in a number of circumstances, where particularly sensitive topic matter will be discussed in the school, either in or out of the formal classroom setting. The benefit is five fold.
- This is a tool for parents to communicate the values that are important to their family when it comes to the instruction of sensitive material-particularly that of a sexual nature- in their children's education in school.
- The form will encourage conversation between parents, teachers, and school administrators.
- This notification request will increase citizen awareness about the current state of the law in Alberta concerning a parent’s legal right to be engaged and involved in the curricular and extra curricular material offered to their children in schools, thus increasing grass-roots engagement with elected trustees and school boards.
- As pressure increases at the school level, it will do so at the trustee and board level, and that pressure will be placed onto elected MLAs in the Alberta Government to speak out on behalf of concerned parents and a) return parent rights and school autonomy; b) allow locally based accommodations, anti-bullying plans and decision making that fits the needs of student(s) appropriately; c) state clearly that respect for the parent-teacher relationship and, most importantly, the parent-child bond must be respected.
- When thousands of parents sign and submit this form, this will pro-actively influence school policies, culture and practices.
Print the Parental Request of Notification, fill it in, and deliver it to your school. Deliver it again when you register for each new school year. If you are in the process of discerning the best setting for your child, print it and deliver it to prospective educational settings. This will allow you to discern if each setting is or is not respectful of your role as the primary caregiver and decision maker as to the kind of education that shall be given to your child.