Saint John and area CEC meeting

on Tuesday April 29/08 at 6:30–8:00 pm. at Lancaster Baptist Church, 87 Church Ave. W., Saint John.

Communique

This is the first cross-provincial call-to-action from “Citizens for Education Choice”, a recently-formed umbrella group that supports fundamental choice in the province’s educational system and opposes the Liberal government’s intention to remove it. Some of us don’t want the EFI experience to be taken from NB’s children; others are sure that gr. 5 Intensive French is not right for their children. We include Francophones concerned about our culture, and immigrants who would like our children to learn a second language. All of us feel that the Liberals have turned their backs on the fundamental practices of civil society as they rush to implement Lamrock’s educational experiment.

Until now, we’ve fought Lamrock’s folly separately: our voices have been heard in letters, phone-ins and marches, but we haven’t coordinated our efforts; our ideas have been exchanged on blogs and comments, bu we haven’t worked together to understand the real issues involved. After a meeting in Sussex this weekend with leaders in this fight from all over the province, we planned to ‘connect the dots’ between our local efforts. This will consist in a number of efforts happening at the same time with coordination from the CEC Council. Of course, CEC-organized efforts don’t have to be the only way we fight Lamrock’s changes — local and personal work matters greatly but we hope that together we can do even more.

Volunteers Needed

Do you have time to distribute documents, or writing skills, or researching, or PR skills? CEC can use these to work for choice, and we’re asking everyone to make small, coordinated efforts in writing editors, contacting politicians, etc.

For instance, will someone come forward to be the one who reminds people when it’s their turn to speak up in the editorials? Who will coordinate efforts to have letters sent in French to the Francophone media?

We also need people to look through the media sources, Hansard, etc. to keep us informed with a daily summary, if possible.

We need to visit local MLAs, Liberal Riding Associations and make sure that the message gets out at PSSCs and that we communicate with parents at daycares.

If you would like to volunteer to do these things, please write Shannon at educational.choice@gmail.com

Issues that Need Study

Are you a research or a writer? We need people to investigate some of the following issues:

• Expose the injustice of the ‘Council of DEC Chairs’ making pronouncements on this issue
• Research the failures of consultation leading up to Croll/Lee, including: That teachers in AEFNB were not formally consulted, while English-speaking persons were
• That the consultative process was inappropriate for the drastic action taken
• The effect of this on rural areas
• The nature of the proposed ‘immersion’ experience, which omits Science and Math What will a typical schedule look like?
• Will the product of this system reach the goals of Lamrock?
• Means of engaging Francophones in this debate

If you would like to help look into one of these and, teachers, you don’t have to put your name to your work — please contact Shannon at educational.choice@gmail.com.

CEC Council going wil see to it that each of these issues is highlighted in a polished and well-timed press release.

Publications

We will soon have a grass-roots document package that can be used to explain the problems in daycares, PSSCs and elsewhere.

Together, let’s convince the government to return to educational choice.