List of School Boards Who Have Concluded Negotiations with ATA
Negotiations are underway around the province as school boards and the Alberta Teachers’ Association work towards concluding collective agreements before the Jan. 31 deadline established under the Memorandum of Agreement between the ATA and the provincial government. See the list of boards who have concluded agreements.

Clean Audit Report for ASBA
Rob Quilley, partner with KPMG LLP, presented the ASBA’s 2006-2007 audited financial statements to the ASBA Board of Directors. KPMG gave the association a clean audit report. Quilley advised the board of directors the association was in a healthy position: the association is carrying no debt; the association ended the year with a small operating surplus of $5,000 (operating revenues totaled $4.137 million and operating expenditures totaled $4.132 million) and the ASBA ended the year with an overall surplus of $39,235. The association’s assets, liabilities and fund balances totaled $3.8 million. The 2006-2007 audited financial statements are available on the ASBA website. For more information, contact ASBA Director of Finance and Administration Heather Rogers.

Progress on 2007-2010 ASBA Stategic Plan
The ASBA Board of Directors received the first quarter report describing progress on the ASBA’s 2007-2010 strategic plan, which is focused on achieving the following:

See the ASBA’s strategic plan.

Education in the News
Safety Council calls for ban on deadly vans
Schools nationwide should ban the use of big vans for transporting students, says the Canada Safety Council in the wake of a deadly crash in Bathurst, N.B., that killed seven basketball players and one teacher.

Trustee Day/Peace Wapiti debate continues
After leaving the country to take on humanitarian work, despite not being granted a leave of absence from the Peace Wapiti School Division board to do so, trustee Tammy Day’s request to take part in the regular meeting by way of conference call from her current location in Bolivia was declined by trustees.

Grande Prairie Catholic keeps Golden Compass
While some Catholic school boards in the country have opted to remove Philip Pullman’s book, The Golden Compass, and its sequels from school library shelves, the Grande Prairie Catholic school district has not followed suit.

What's New Online?
See the January edition of the ASBA’s Communications Now for articles about:

As a service to school boards, the ASBA circulates Communications Now – an electronic package of communications and public relations tips for school boards and schools – to jurisdiction offices every month. For more information contact Tamara Stecyk.

School safety report released in wake of death of Toronto student
In the wake of the shooting death of student Jordan Manners, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) commissioned a report with a goal of understanding the events that lead to his death. The final report, which contains 126 recommendations, was released Jan. 10.

Report compares experiences of first-year teachers
The Working Without a Net: How Teachers Describe Their First Year on the Job report describes the supports first-year teachers in high-needs schools receive. Public Agenda, a U.S. based non-profit organization dedicated to non-partisan public policy research, published the report which found alternate-route teachers – those who entered the teaching profession after a first career – were more disheartened by the conditions they find in the classroom than teachers who entered via the traditional route. See the full report.