Year: 2023
Location: Fort McMurray
Profile: Joanne Lavkulich is a Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) member who has been the librarian at the Catholic Central High School in Lethbridge for almost 35 years. She describes the many services the school library offers as a learning environment outside the classroom. Before coming to Lethbridge, she established the library at the Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller. She takes issue with the proliferation of private and charter schools in Alberta because they restrict entry to privileged and specially qualified students, and siphon funds from the public system, including the Catholic schools, which are already underfunded. They also tend to deviate from well-established standards. She believes this proliferation is part of a privatization agenda which militates against such public school aims as inclusion and diversity. Public funding for private and charter schools drains funds once available for supports, such as teaching assistants, which were previously available in the public system. The funding decline has also helped to produce an ongoing deterioration in pay and working conditions, CUPE has undertaken a lobbying campaign to counter threats to the public system.
Keywords: Charter schools; Diversity; Education funding; Librarian; Public schools; Private schools; Teaching assistants; Tyrell Museum of Paleontology.
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See also: Canadian Union of Public Employees; Women and Work in Alberta