Jan Kline-Farmer

Candidate for Public School Trustee Jan Kline-Farmer joins Brian on the Porch to discuss her reasons for running. Jan wants to see school boards get back some of their autonomy so they can help guide community and parental involvement.

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Transcript

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I'm concerned with the classroom sizes. I'm concerned with the lack of, sort, the autonomy of the school boards that what they have right now. The teachers strike, of course, the book banning was a real big issue for me as well. I am an avid reader, and some of the books that they had decided to ban were ones were classics for us growing up. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And joining me now on the porch is a public school trustee candidate, Jan Klein-Farmer. Welcome. Thank you, Brian, I appreciate this opportunity. Well, we're glad to have you. As we were talking just before we started here, it's been, three and a half weeks into the campaign and you've had your running shoes on. I've had my running shoes on. It's been an interesting campaign. I guess I've learned an awful lot through running social media during these events. It's been a really good experience, a really good learning experience. But I appreciate it. You stepped out of your comfort zone. I had to step out of my comfort zone. Yes. Now, what have you learned? You said you learned a few things. Well, I definitely learned, social media, presenting myself a little bit more through social media. I've learned about school programs as well. You know, I was in contact with the assistant superintendent last week talking about special ed, inclusion in classrooms. So I was able to learn about new programs that I was unfamiliar with being a parent of. A few years ago. I know the feeling. Yeah, yeah. What's in your heart? My heart is, I have real concern for the educational system right now. I'm concerned with the classroom sizes. I'm concerned with the lack of, certainly the autonomy of the school boards that what they have right now, the teachers strike. Of course, the book banning was a real big issue for me as well. I am an avid reader, and some of the books that they had decided to ban were ones with classics a fast growing up. So, I have a concern when that local, autonomy is taken away from the school board and these decisions are made at the provincial government. So how does a school trustee in medicine have to fight that? I think we have to advocate very strongly that we want back some local autonomy. I think it's important to be sort of transparent with our, approaches with the government. I'm finding there doesn't seem to be much, I hate to use it for transparency, because it's not that the the lack of knowledge in the community of what our school boards are doing, and I think it could be a lack of parental involvement, community involvement themselves, not wanting to find out what's going on, or is it something that's happening at the school board level. This is something I'd like to look into and see how we can encourage community and parents and everybody. You become more involved with local issues. I know that when Catherine Wilson was here, she was saying that it sometimes is a little disheartening when the board meets and they look in the public gallery and there's nobody there. Oh, I know, and, you know, last night at the teachers forum, it was very similar. I the 80 4 a.m. I, I was surprised at the lack of audience, but I think with social media right now and being able to put it out on YouTube and things like that, I think people are so busy that they're taking their time to view it at home, and they're only. In their, in their time frame, their. Schedule. Yes. That's right. I was joking with Catherine. Maybe what you need to do is, get everybody riled up, and then they'll come out with their torches and pitchforks. That's right. And that's where we could have done the book burning a little bit more. I saw Calgary and Edmonton taking a fairly strong stance and coming out with that. I didn't see that here in Medicine Hat, and I wondered why. And that was one of the issues that I wanted to find out more about what's causing us not to speak out. What not, to advocate on behalf of our students. What's your background? I know you have an, a background in early childhood education. Yes. That's correct. I, now, this will take me a bit. I was a daycare director for the City of Medicine Hat when they had the daycare centers. My last position was at Herald School, so I was working with special needs children, working cooperatively with the community and other professionals, developing individual student plans and and making sure staff implemented them so that my background here miss and happy. But I also was a daycare daycare director up in Calgary and Airdrie as well. I have a very wide variety of experience, so. Well, I was up in Calgary, I had been working part time in retail and my manager at that time said, hey, you want to be my assistant? And I went, oh, okay, that's a different career take. So I went off in that route and worked in Calgary, several companies, in retail as managers. And then I came back to Medicine Hat and worked at Jane Elliott as a manager. And my final job was with, People's Jewelers. So I have a good knowledge of wide financial responsibility and working within budgets and transparency. So I feel I had some good skills to bring to the. Table and relating to customers as well. Exactly. And that's a huge part. Sometimes, you know, it's not easy to do. No, no. And I must say I think I'm pretty good at that. Least that's what my staff told me. They ran into a difficult, customer. They are. Well, even I'm going to say parent and child care. They would bring it back to me and say, Jan, can you handle it? And usually I was able to work cooperatively with parents and customers. I think it's recognizing that there's a problem and recognizing, you know, what can we do to help this? There was many times there was nothing I could do, but, allowing me the opportunity to sit one on one and find out what the problem was and understand it and recognize it and say, well, I can't do this, but what can we do? One of the skills of someone who's involved in conflict resolution is the ability to listen. Exactly. And have that person know that their message has been received. Definitely. So that would be a skill that would translate into, public school trustee, for sure. Classroom sizes in Medicine Hat. Have you heard how we are doing in that area? We hear these horror stories in Calgary. We sure do. Haven't heard so much about that in that. Not, not as much as listen to some teachers and ask them what their classroom sizes are. And they're running about 25 children. Maybe that so, but I don't think we can say we're going to be immune to this right now with our declining probably students, our classroom sizes are still lower. But, hopefully as Medicine Hat grows and we attract younger people into the city, our schools will start to grow and thrive. I see this as an opportunity for Medicine Hat to advertise to people in Calgary and Edmonton. Class sizes are a concern in your city. In medicine Hat, we have actual in the blank, so there's an opportunity here. Exactly. I think a great opportunity for that. It'll help us promote medicine that and their advantages here medicine hat and bring it back to our education. Unfortunately in education the way it is today, there's also competition amongst different school divisions, even amongst different schools, to attract students because the students bring government funding. Your thoughts are having to compete with outside schools like Prairie Roads and the medicine that Catholic Board of Education. I think it's a shame that we're starting to have to compete. I think we're all in it for the same purposes. And, unfortunately, the dollars, when it's attached to students causes that competitiveness. I understand even with the private schools that they're getting funded, 70% of their, per student for their programs, and those programs are able to keep classroom sizes small. They're able to turn away children with learning disabilities, with special needs, with behavior problems. Where we in the private school, public school, we accept everybody. So it's a real I find it very negative that we're competing with each other. It may be time to work cooperatively with each other and advocate to the schools, to the, the provincial government, that this is not a situation we want to be in. We're here to educate all children. In the classroom, the challenges the teachers face on a daily basis. One of them, I think you've alluded to it a bit, is the special needs children, and then you need the educational assistance in there to work with them as well. Yes. I come from a background. I have some personal experience in that. My son, with special needs, often two was a behavior problem, and, it's imperative that we work together. Together with parents. I know myself, I was able to work with my son and help him control his behavior. Is that the right term? But I couldn't do it if I wasn't given the information, or if it wasn't given to me as quickly as it should have been given to me. So I think it's imperative that we work closely with parents in it. It's very difficult as as a parent of a child who has those needs to accept some of the how we sometimes give up on our youth. 15 my son was reading at a premier primary level, and I was told that, he might never learn to read and that maybe he could work in a pet shop. Well, I had to navigate and appeal the school district. I won several, appeals through them. And my son now is a contributing adult who is married, has two children, owns a home in a welder. So what more can a mom want? You didn't give up on me. I didn't, and I think it's imperative that we don't give up on children. I recall when I was, student, and that's a while. Back it up. When we had special needs children, they were separated from the rest of the school body. Yes. And I'm not sure if that was a good idea. So gradually now, they have been integrated into the classroom. Your thoughts on that? I have mixed feelings. I see my son being into, separate it, plus integrate it. I think sometimes the integration can cost, frustrations. There is different kind of bullying that is associated with children with learning disabilities. And I know at times he was frustrated and that could cause some of his behaviors testily. However, and this is where I tend to defer my opinion now today, compared to back when my son was going to school, there wasn't all the programs that were available to our, children like that. They didn't have the we didn't have the aides have the resources for him. So we I did appeal the school district, and we took him to the Foothills Academy in Calgary, which is a specialized school for learning disabilities. He was only there for a year and went from a pre-primary level to a grade six level at reading. Wow. Yeah. So we were able to come back to Medicine Hat and with the hard work and advocating on his for his schooling, he was able to get an aide for one on one for four years, which doesn't often happen. No. But, I was able to achieve that through the appeals. And he graduated in three years. So there and that was within our public system. So there are good teachers out there and good resources that can tie into these children that have learning disabilities. So I, I remember a little waffling on should they be isolated or should they be integrated? I think when it suits the child the best for them, where they thrive is really important. If the classroom is to chaotic or to, not correct for a child with special needs, then maybe we need to look at what can best be suited for that child. There's no one solution. No there isn't. You touched on bullying. In my day, you would see bullying in the in the schoolyard. And it might be. I'm going to take your lunch money or whatever. Yeah. These days, bullying is taking on a whole different form. With social media and all the horror stories we hear about how children are being targeted online. What can the public school board do about that? I think it's important that we bring up awareness. I don't know if there's so much that we can do about it, but I think working with parents, working with the the child that's being bullied and, bringing in maybe outside agencies that can tie in and support this situation. I personally just know someone whose granddaughter has committed suicide because of bullying. You know, that's sad. And then that is sad. And yet I don't know how much the school could have done because it was being done off school time and everything. So again, it's really imperative work with parents. And I think the parents of the children who are bullying as well, I think if they were aware of what was going on and that that they might be able to help with that situation as well. Perhaps something in the curriculum to help children understand bullying and how to fight it would be an answer, or at least something that would help. Exactly. I, was able to serve on the board of Kennedy Mental Health for ten years, both locally and provincially. So I have a, a soft spot for mental health. And I think that we need to tie in the community and other resources out there to help our children, cope with all situations. Covid is one of them. I think that they've had a hard time dealing with Covid. And now with teacher strike. Yeah, it, it affects their social life for sure, because they're used to being with their friends for ten months out of the year. All of a sudden, what do we do? Yeah, exactly. So I think it's important to tie in the community as well. I think there are really good resources out there that could assist us with that curriculum, and maybe even offer afterschool programs so that the children can go to and feel safe. Sharing your thoughts on the current curriculum in Alberta, we do see a lot of, uproar when they change the curriculum. Yes, I've got a real problem with the curriculum. I feel that, educators haven't been involved enough, that it's been heavy put down heavily by the Alberta government. And, I don't think it it allows the local boards and the local communities to gear it to what their needs are at the time. So, I've got a problem with it. And also to how it was implemented with no resources, lack of support for teachers and books. So, I think it was a epic failure, to tell you the truth. Anything else that we haven't touched on that is, close to your heart when it comes to public education? I don't think so. Just that I'm coming from a, part of a community member. Grandma. Mother, that education has always been important to me. It has shown me that that's a way to step up and make have let people thrive. One of the issues that I have is with homelessness and everything right now. Right now, we're putting Band-Aids on things. We need to look at what the causes were. We need to keep our kids in school. We need to give them the support they they need so that they can thrive and become productive citizens. Jen, sounds like you have a heart for kids. I really do. Thank you. I'll be a candidate on, the October 20th election, and, we'll see. I guess a couple of days later, whether you're successful or not. I think you've been successful already. Well, thank you very much, Brian. It's been really a lot of fun, an opportunity. Thank you for this opportunity. It's new to me, and I've enjoyed it. You're most welcome.