Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Federal funding shortfall leaves school with 99% Indigenous population facing possible closure
School is mostly made up of students from Stoney Nakoda First Nation Exshaw School is a kindergarten to Grade 8 school located in the hamlet of Exshaw, west of Calgary. Of the approximately 200 students who attend Exshaw School, only two are not Indigenous.
Joel Dryden · CBC News · 

Exshaw School is located west of Calgary, and serves approximately 200 students, most of them Indigenous. (Brian Burnett/CBC)

A school with a student population that is 99 per cent Indigenous may be forced to close its doors due to a budget shortfall, school officials said Sunday.
Exshaw School is a kindergarten to Grade 8 school located in the hamlet of Exshaw, west of Calgary. Of the approximately 200 students who attend Exshaw School, only two are not Indigenous.
The school has been funded by federal dollars since 1973. Under the current agreement, the Canadian Rockies Public Schools authority educates Stoney Nakota First Nation children outside of that community based on requests from parents.
Michelle Wesley said she decided to move her girls to Exshaw School after they had faced bullying at a previous school.
"The Exshaw staff and teachers have been absolutely wonderful and supportive and helped my girls catch up to their grade level criteria and there has been no complaints from my girls about any type of bullying," Wesley said in an email. "If I have any concerns the teachers and staff make sure it's dealt [with] as soon as possible."
But in late August, CRPS received word from the federal government the agreement would be terminated and a new agreement would need to be negotiated with the Stoney Education Authority and the government.

$1.6M shortfall

"All of this is fine, but in the interim we received an email of possible funding levels that we would receive," said Christopher MacPhee, superintendent with Canadian Rockies Public Schools. "And it was significantly different from the total operation of a school facility, as opposed to just funding per student."
According to MacPhee, calculating numbers based on students from last year left an approximately $1.6-million shortfall in the school's upcoming budget.
That cut funding would mean closing or re-purposing the school, MacPhee said.
"Either way, that means that we would not be able to provide services for our federally-funded students who are with us, which we would loathe to do," he said. "The results we're getting with those students has been fantastic to date."

Staff found this piece of graffiti inside a washroom at Exshaw School, located west of Calgary. (Submitted)
Exshaw School is currently seeing attendance rates around 86 per cent, MacPhee said.
"That's very high. And I've worked in a number of Indigenous schools across this country," he said. "I think the rates are high due to the resources we are able to put into place that the federal government has granted in the agreement that was in place for some amount of years."

One-year extension

According to MacPhee, communication with the federal government has been difficult — but after months of trying to secure a meeting, the school division was offered a one-year extension to keep the school open.
"Just recently, we've got a communication that they have permission to extend the agreement for one more year. While on the face of it it sounds wonderful, but it absolutely isn't," he said. "I have a large number of staff who are, for lack of better words, in turmoil at this point because they're wondering if they're going to have a career."
MacPhee said the school division told Indigenous Services the offer was "not optimal" due to the added pressure and stress it would cause on the system.
"We said, it's November, and we haven't even had a sit down at a table to negotiate. But you gave us the letter at the end of August," he said. "Why, with six months left in the school year, are we not sitting down, in January, and getting to an agreement that best supports these children and utilize the funding levels that they've done in other parts of the province?"
In a statement provided to CBC the day after this article was published, a spokesperson for Indigenous Services Canada said the $1.6-million shortfall was inaccurate, and that the only change at this point is in administration. 
The spokesperson said through the transition, the department has worked in partnership with CRSD and the Stoney Education Authority to obtain clarity on the true costs of education services and support at Exshaw School.
"Indigenous Services Canada continues to work in partnership with the Stoney First Nation Education Authority and the School District to ensure the best possible outcomes for these students," the statement reads.
MacPhee said the department was "playing with words." 
"They are correct. There is no funding shortfall now, but the future funding numbers they gave us would result in a funding shortfall of approximately $1.6 million," MacPhee wrote in an email.
MacPhee said CRPS has provided three potential dates for meetings with the federal government.
"For me, it's disappointing that the [government], which made Truth and Reconciliation a mandate … that their actions are not matching their words, especially when it comes to a situation like this," MacPhee said. "If you're going to talk the talk, then walk it."

Concern from parents

While Exshaw School's future remains uncertain, some parents say those being most affected are the kids — who Isabella Goodstoney, a parent and educational assistant, said "are not being heard."
"I feel like that these kids need to have a voice. This is their future," she said. 
Upon hearing Exshaw's future was uncertain, Goodstoney wrote a letter regarding her concern for her daughter's future.
"That's why I chose to transfer my child to Exshaw School from Nakota Elementary School as I know the experience and educational value Exshaw School provides," the letter reads. "I know this as a fact because I've attended both schools as a child myself, and have had the opportunity to work at both schools as an adult.
"What will happen if we take this away from them? Are we setting them up for failure? I want my child to grow, learning that her education is the key to success."

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#KENNEY'S FOLLIES #ABPOLI 

Calgary-based Husky Energy Inc. has decided to cut its capital spending plan by $500 million. Their new plans now forecast $100 million less in spending for 2020 and $400 million less for 2021. The spending in question will remain focused on projects in Atlantic Canada and China. While announcing th...







NORTH99.ORG



After taking $233 million from Kenney’s tax cut, Husky confirms 370 layoffs and $500 million less in investments

KENNEY OWES THE PEMBINA INSTITUTE A PUBLIC APOLOGY


Change Alberta
4 hrs





Jason Kenney would have made the late, drunken, mean-spirited Senator Joe McCarthy happy. Like McCarthy, he smears individuals in a drive-by shooting manner. During and after the election campaign, he made Simon Dyer and the Pembina Institute out to be enemies of Oilberta when, in fact, like the NDP government, Dyer and the Institute are simply people trying to balance out the interests of the established oil industry in Alberta and the climate crisis that all climate scientists and many events demonstrate threaten human, animal, and plant life on Earth.

Of course that is enough to get them in the crosshairs of an irresponsible gun-slinging premier who cannot stand the idea of anyone having anything but completely warm thoughts about the industry that brought prosperity to Alberta, though leaving many of its residents out of the party.
Amazingly, because Kenney has no evidence of his own to demonstrate the truth of his election and post-election claims that the carbon tax is a "job-killer," he now wants to rely on figures from the Pembina Institute that show micro-negative economic effects of the tax on Alberta's GDP (a .05 percent decline). So he has praised that Institute in his submission to the federal government.
But where is the apology to Pembina and to Simon Dyer? Any decent human being who is now extolling the figures from a certain source that they previously claimed were "enemies" would apologize first.
Premier Jason Kenney's claim that the non-profit Pembina Institute is an enemy of Alberta's energy industry is contradicted in documents his own government filed in court.



CBC.CA
Kenney government praises Pembina Institute, alleged energy industry enemy, in court documents | CBC News




Edmonton

From zero to $60: Edmonton parents brace for increases to school bus fees

Extracurricular activities, family's budget will be impacted, says one mom

Jordan Omstead · CBC News · 


Last week's decision to increase bus fees will impact the families of around 11,000 Edmonton Public School students. (Eddy Kennedy/CBC)


With school bus fees set to rise by hundreds of dollars in the new year, Tia McAdam says her Edmonton family has some difficult decisions to make.
She has already cut back on her twin daughters' choir and dance lessons in light of rising school fees. But McAdam says all extracurricular activities could be kiboshed to help pay for a three-fold hike in bus fees, approved last week by Edmonton Public School Board trustees. 
"That's what's heartbreaking," she said. 
"I hate the fact that they're doing nothing but homework and housework when they come from school. But, you know, I guess that's just the political climate right now." 
On Feb. 1, the cost to bus her daughters to Riverbend Junior High on a subsidized Edmonton Transit Service pass will increase from $19 to $60 a month. It takes about an hour for the Grade 7 students to make the seven-kilometre trip on transit. 
Trustees approved the increase last Tuesday, in reaction to the Alberta government's decision to eliminate the School Fee Reduction grant. That program was introduced by the NDP government to help offset the costs of 2017 legislation that prohibited school boards from charging bus fees to families living more than 2.4 kilometres from their designated school. 
In February, the monthly cost of a yellow bus for students from kindergarten up to Grade 6 will rise from zero to $33 a month for families living further than 2.4 kilometres. For older students, the monthly fee rises from zero to $60. 
Similar fees, also going into effect Feb. 1, were approved Tuesday by the Edmonton Catholic School Division. Under its cost recovery program, the monthly cost of passes for students from kindergarten to grade 6 will be $33.50 per month. The cost for older students will be $56.50 per month. 
The public board was already facing a significant deficit for transportation services. The loss of the grant added another $5.3 million to the funding gap, for a total $7.7 million shortfall. 
"With the elimination of the grant, it means we're in a really tight financial position," said board chair Trisha Estabrooks. 
"The way in which our transportation network is set up is not sustainable and we've known that for a number of years now." 
In a statement, the Ministry of Education said it respects the autonomy of local school boards to make decisions on day-to-day matters.
"As always, school boards will remain accountable to the parents of their students for any fees they choose to bring into force," acting spokesperson Jerrica Goodwin said. 
McAdam will likely end up driving her daughters to and from school, instead of doling out $120 a month for bus passes. It will mean taking more time off work, affecting her income from her job at a bank.
Her husband travels regularly for work in the oil and gas industry. 
"I would really like to start thinking about the future not just getting through from one month to the next," she said. 

More fee increases 'very likely', board chair says

The school board expects to recoup $2.8 million this year from the February bus fee increases. The other $4.9 million will be covered by a surplus fund. 
But Estabrooks says it's "very likely" the board will have to consider another bus fee increase before the next school year. 
"I don't feel great about that, but that's the situation that we're in. When it comes to wanting to make sure that we direct as many dollars as possible into classrooms, that's going to be our priority right now," she said. 
The board will consult with families in the new year to determine what kind of services they want and how much they're willing to pay, Estabrook says.


Edmonton Public School trustee Michael Janz looks on as chair Trisha Estabrooks asks a question at last week's board meeting. (Peter Evans/CBC )
The prospect of another bus fee increases starts to chip away at the definition of a truly public school system as parents struggle to make up the costs, says Michael Tryon, executive director of Canadian Parents for French Alberta, an organization that advocates for French-language education. 
"It comes from the food budget, it comes from, we don't go out for dinner, we don't get to do the fun things. Do the kids get to play sports? All those factors," said Tryon, who has a son in Grade 11. 
Roughly 105,000 students attend Edmonton Public Schools. 
With files from Michelle Bellefontaine
SEE     https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MINTZ





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Chile UPDATES
'Mentally, we're in crisis mode': protests leave Chileans living on their nerves
Chileans are gripped by uncertainty – suspended between hopes of progress, and frustration over an elusive political solution

John Bartlett in Santiago
Tue 17 Dec 2019
The Guardian
 
A woman uses her phone as security forces members look on in 
Santiago, Chile, on 16 December 2019. Photograph: Iván Alvarado/Reuters

When a tsunami of unrest spilled into Santiago’s fashionable Bellavista neighbourhood in October, Daniel Gajardo, 33, was torn between sympathy for the protesters and frustration at the harm they were doing his fledgling business.

The recording studio and music shop he co-owns had been thriving, and moved to new premises just a day before the first major demonstration.

But then came a week-long curfew (during which their shop was burgled), an ongoing succession of demonstrations and street battles – and a 19-day wait before their next sale.

“I would sit in my office staring at my phone, but it didn’t ring for two weeks,” said Gajardo. “It’s been like starting from scratch because we have debts to pay without any income. This has hit us incredibly hard,” he said.

Two months after Chile lurched from an illusory clm to a fiery outburst of rage, there is still no sign that life is about to return to normal.


'The constitution of the dictatorship has died': Chile agrees deal on reform vote Read more

After an agreement last month between political parties, the country will next year hold a referendum on drafting a new constitution – one of the protesters’ main demands.

But widespread anger still simmers over inequality, social exclusion and the high cost of education and healthcare. Demonstrators continue to gather across the country every day, and violence often erupts at nightfall.

Chileans have found themselves in a state of uncertainty – suspended between hopes of progress, and frustration over a political solution which seems beyond reach

.
People wait at a bus stop during a national strike and general demonstration 
in Santiago on 12 November. Photograph: Claudio Santana/Getty Images

“In some ways, this protest has been a carnival and a liberation – bringing euphoria and an excess of emotions,” said psychoanalyst Constanza Michelson. “But for many people there is also creeping anxiety: human beings are not built to withstand such uncertainty. Mentally, it puts us in crisis mode.

“There’s a huge deficit in terms of mental healthcare in our country, and making people’s commutes longer and days more stressful is inevitably going to take its toll,” she said.

María Paz Núñez, 34, lives close to Santiago’s Plaza Italia, a focus of the protests, and has been given a leave of absence in order to deal with depression.

“Seeing my neighbourhood destroyed and graffitied, not having the metro – it all affects you, whether or not you agree with the demands of the movement as I do. Faced with a government that doesn’t listen, we are all left with this infuriating feeling of impotence.”

According to Chile’s health ministry, the number of people given medical leave from work citing mental health concerns increased 22% over the first five weeks of the protests.

In some parts of the country life has regained a degree of normality, but daily routines are still disrupted by transport stoppages, the near-paralysis of the university system, and pockets of vandalism and violence in parts of cities.

For many, the stress of each day is compounded by the financial impact of the protests: according to the government, nearly 15,000 businesses have been affected by the movement, more than half of which have suffered damage to their property.

Arson attacks have gutted historic buildings in cities the length of Chile, and there have been incidents of looting and opportunist crime.

Gajardo and his business partner Cristián Luengo have struggled to reconcile his enthusiasm for the movement with the damage it has inflicted upon their business, forcing them to cut their employees’ hours.

“The emotions are mixed,” said Luengo, “I was paranoid. Every night I sleep badly, worried that the phone will ring to say that our place has been looted. It’s the uncertainty that gets you in the end.”

Vast marches have become less frequent, but the undercurrent of rage that drove them has not yet dissipated. In downtown Santiago, the breeze still carries a whiff of teargas, and the statue of the 19th-century hero Manuel Baquedano in Plaza Italia remains a focal point for protesters

Plaza Italia in Santiago has remained a focal point 
for demonstrators, such as here on 10 December. 
Photograph: Pablo Sanhueza/Reuters

Some who joined the demonstrations on 18 October have drifted away from confrontations in the street to resume everyday commitments.

Others remain fully committed.

Every day Camilo, a 20-year-old student in the sprawling coastal city of Valparaíso trudges down the hill from his parents’ house to join the ranks of the discontented.

Pulling a black T-shirt over his face, he sprays slogans on walls, helps build makeshift barricades across roads and attacks buildings and infrastructure.

“I know that smashing a bus shelter or traffic light won’t change anything – but it exerts pressure and that makes a difference. It’s a way of letting the anger inside me out,” he said.


Chile security forces' crackdown leaves toll of death and broken bodies Read more

“When the teargas comes, people help us, washing out our eyes with bicarbonate of soda to soothe the stinging,” he said. “When I’m out there I’m part of a family … You know that you are beside someone who is suffering the same inequalities as you.”

Chileans have not been appeased by solutions offered by mainstream politicians; the government’s approval rating has slumped to around 10%

On Sunday, 2 million Chileans voted in a non-binding consultation which showed that 91% of respondents were in favour of drawing up a new constitution.

But as the protest movement stutters, those who had pinned their hopes on dramatic change may find that the eventual comedown will be severe, said Michelson.

“In the past, people didn’t have a cause to identify with – but they certainly do now,” she said. “How and why would they return to how life was before? They’re in too deep.”

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“In some ways, this protest has been a carnival and a liberation – bringing euphoria and an excess of emotions,” said psychoanalyst Constanza Michelson. 
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COP25 climate summit

Decolonization needed for net-zero emissions

Diana Vela Almeida, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Catherine Windey, University of Antwerp; Gert Van Hecken, University of Antwerp; Melissa Moreano, Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar; Nicolas Kosoy, McGill University, and Vijay Kolinjivadi, University of Antwerp

Who wins, who loses and whose natures are being talked about when nature-based solutions are proposed?
We are in the midst of a global environmental crisis and the sense of urgency becomes ever more evident with each additional story of climate disasters, ecological tipping points and climate records being shattered somewhere in the world.

At this moment, global representatives are gathering at the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Madrid to discuss immediate steps in halting further climate crisis.

Only a few weeks before COP25, a new set of alarming reports were released, pointing to the disastrous impact of continuously rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Thunberg and Monbiot rightly recognize that expenditures on global fossil fuel subsidies are 1,000 times more than the support for nature-based solutions. They claim that what is needed is “to protect, restore and fund nature.”

While the need for urgent action is clear, we must be vigilant to the ways in which “solutions” get proposed and to whose interests are favoured over others.
The solutions proposed at COP25 must reflect the demands of people. It is not clear that this is the case. For instance, the conference was meant to take place in Santiago, Chile, but was diverted to Madrid to avoid the nationwide strikes against economic policies that benefit the very rich at the expense of the majority. These same economic policies are responsible for ecological destruction. The stakes are high and time is running thin to fail to connect these issues.

The devil is in the details

As a group of researchers and practitioners who are deeply committed to exploring how nature-based solutions get implemented on the ground, we want to draw attention to some of the silences in Thunberg and Monbiot’s video. While we cannot emphasize enough that our intervention here aims to build further on their energy and efforts, we do think it is crucial to ask important questions that all too often tend to be overlooked.
Instead of furthering a “we are all in the same boat” rhetoric, we’ve got to address the deeply political issues of who wins, who loses and whose natures are being talked about when nature-based solutions are proposed.
Global corporations like Coca-Cola, Shell, Bayer and BP are increasingly dependent on greening their image to remain socially viable. Some environmental NGOs have been accused of accepting donations from corporations and imposing a view of conservation that makes extractive industries and care for nature compatible. These big environmental NGOs ought to have greater accountability for their actions.
Transformational change must instead be rooted in environmental justice, emphasizing the intersections of nature conservation with migrant justice, bottom-up community-driven approaches to conservation and the recognition of land rights.
Sixteen-year-old Isra Hirsi, for instance, reminds us that climate advocacy has less to do with nature characterized as “a deep love for the great outdoors” and more to do with standing in support of communities whose air and water are being poisoned.
For meaningful change to happen, we must not allow business-as-usual with a greener face to co-opt the voices for change on the streets.

Protect what and for whom?

Thunberg and Monbiot say that nature-based solutions can only work if we leave fossil fuels in the ground. They are, of course, absolutely right. But what happens to people that live where nature-based solutions are being suggested?
For many people, nature is more than a tool or a collection of trees that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. The livelihoods of people are as much a part of forests as the insect drone and the tree canopy.
We need to break from conceptions of pristine nature and make it clear and unambiguous that environments are formed by people shaping nature in ways that reflect their ways of living.
Without questioning the necessity of endless economic growth, nature simply becomes a new source of extractive wealth, in which biodiversity and investment in nature conservation become big business, strategically employed in elaborate public relation ploys.
Similarly, putting monetary values on nature to justify its protection risks imposing a particular (western) language of valuation, while alienating the relationships people have with the living world and reducing it to profit-oriented transactions. Furthermore, purely focusing on carbon when talking about forest protection and restoration risks disregarding other meanings and relational values that forests have for people.

Let’s divest, decolonize and resist

We must be aware of the dangers of green growth, which refers to the idea of growing the economy and therefore maintaining business as usual. While there doesn’t seem to be a single definition for these type of business, they all seem to suggest decarbonization through technology improvements and putting market values for nature.
A mountain-top village in Nam Ha Protected Area, in Luang Namtha, Laos. (Shutterstock)
Green growth is not the same thing as responding to climate urgency. Let’s make sure any funding to protect nature will not be used to further private interests in the development of carbon markets, but rather for experimenting with divestment alternatives that focus on halting the fossil fuel industry, overfishing and the expanding frontier of agri-business.
Let’s restore … but let’s go further! Let’s recognize the original caretakers of the lands and waters and learn about nature from them. Nature is not an idyllic and passive landscape to consume. Greenwashed images of nature, where people are conveniently absent, shield us from the violent suppression of voices that have historically called those places home.
Let’s decolonize our views of nature so that we can better see it all around us and not somewhere “out there” and outside of our human communities. We need to deconstruct persistent ideas of nature as a global good rendering invisible local conceptions, needs and demands to the land by its inhabitants.
We also must resist by supporting the struggle of millions of marginalized people around the world dispossessed from their lands, their forests, their waters and their ways of life.
This goes far beyond just rallying around the banner of an abstract environmentalism. Caring for nature means resisting the commodification of nature and standing up to environmental injustice. It also means getting to know the struggles and aspirations of environmental defenders and forest dwellers, who they fight and how you can help from where you are.
It is crucial to mobilize and get politically organized, to come together in solidarity for a long-haul struggle. The young people organizing around Thunberg’s call are an amazing turning point in global politics. Let’s seize the moment and never sell ourselves short.

In September, Greta Thunberg joined environmental activist and writer George Monbiot to produce a video, #NatureNow, to raise the potential of nature-based solutions “to repair our broken climate,” drawing on the processes and functions of nature, including reforestation and restoration of forests, wetlands and mangroves.
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