How are schools organized?

1. How are schools organized? Understanding the organizational influences upon your role as a teacher.

2. School Organization Pre-view • Please take a few moments and work at your table to identify preliminary answers to the questions posed.

3. Why are schools organized as they are?

4. Meeting of the school trustees http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do;jsessionid=18EBB5B7AC17A335DFAD96A453808ECD.tomcat1?id=10183

5. Knowing the ways schools are organized helps us… • ask questions and propose changes to current practices • recognize the ways that power is exercised through current structures • understand how this affects the day-to-day work of teachers • play a leadership role in effecting change for improving public education

6. We need to ask… • Why things are the way they are? • How did they come to be this way? • Who benefits the most and the least from this arrangement?

7. Some important underlying aspects of schooling in Canada • Public Accessibility: Free access to all • Equal Opportunity of all students to benefit from schooling regardless of power or privilege • Public Funding for all students • Public Control of education by the general elected public • Public Accountability by which schools are answerable to the public for what is taught

8. Activity #2Think-Pair-Share • Please spend five minutes of quiet time completing this individually • Share your answers with a neighbor • Please be prepared to share with the entire class

9. An ActRespecting Education • WHEREAS the education system of Nova Scotia is of vital importance to the future of Nova Scotia; • AND WHEREAS meaningful partnerships between and participation by students, parents, teachers, other staff in the public school system, school board members and the public should be encouraged to ensure a high-quality education system; • AND WHEREAS students should have a right and a responsibility to participate fully in learning opportunities, contribute to an orderly and safe learning environment and, in appropriate circumstances, participate in decisions that affect their schools; • AND WHEREAS parents should have a right and a responsibility to support their children in achieving learning success and participate in decisions that affect their children; • AND WHEREAS the education community, in making decisions, should consider the diverse nature and heritage of society in Nova Scotia within the context of its values and beliefs; • AND WHEREAS the education system should be committed to fair and equitable participation and benefit by all people in Nova Scotia:

10. PUBLIC SCHOOLS • Free schools 5 (1) All public schools established or conducted pursuant to this Act are free schools. • (2) Subject to this Act and the regulations and notwithstanding the Age of Majority Act, every person over the age of five years and under the age of twenty-one years has the right to attend a public school serving the school district or school region in which that person resides, as assigned by the school board. • (3) A school board may, in accordance with the regulations, admit foreign students and, notwithstanding subsection (1), fees may be charged to such students as prescribed by the regulations. 1995-96, c. 1, s. 5.

11. Three Tensions in Public Education • Uniformity versus Diversity of Educational Curriculum, programs, and Approaches • Centralization versus Decentralization of Power and Authority over Educational Decisions • Professional versus Lay (Public/Elected) Authority over Educational Decisions

12. Activity 3 • Please do activity three by exploring how the three tensions may relate to and influence your work as a teacher

13. The Essence of Public Education in Canada • Origins in British North America Act 1867 (now the Constitution Act of 1982 • Publicly funded • Provincially controlled • Compulsory education • Supports 93 percent of students in Canada • Enables separate schools • School board/district systems

14. Activity 4Provincial powers in education Why are schools under provincial and not federal jurisdiction? Who created school districts/boards? Why? With whom did the power lie in education in the 1800s? Has the places of these powers changed over time? What acts of historical legislation shaped the regulations of education as we know it today?

15. Provincial powers

16. Minister of Education • Central educational authority in province • In NS, PSE and P-12 separated in 2011 • Minister Ramona Jennex is elected to the legislature & member of Cabinet • Provincial government has overall legal authority over education, including policy, funding, teacher certification , curriculum, and school board monitoring • Day-to-day management in the hands of the Deputy Minister, Rosalind Penfound

17. School Boards • Are positioned between strong centralizing pressures of the Ministry and the decentralizing pressures from parents and local communities • In NS, current issues are financial crisis of province, and the threats to local programs posed by declining enrollments and impending school closures • Day-to-day administration of schools

18. Activity 6Underlying Tensions • Find some individuals who are also interested in developing a deepened understanding of the underlying tensions as they play out in either Provincial, Separate, Aboriginal or Minority Language Education

19. Response #2: Due January 30: • Drawing upon the tensions of power and authority which are raised in chapter two related to centralized authority/local control, professional/lay authority, uniformity /diversity, and religious interests, discuss either Aboriginal education, provincial control of education, separate schools, or minority language schools.