On September 1, the education provisions of Bill 44 will come into effect, however, Alberta Education does not expect classroom practices to change significantly.
The education provisions of the bill will amend Alberta’s Human Rights Act to impose upon school boards an obligation to notify parents in advance when “courses of study, educational programs or instructional materials, or instruction or exercises, prescribed under [the School Act] include subject matter that deals primarily and explicitly with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation.”
If a parent makes a written request that a student not be exposed to a program, instruction or materials, the teacher is obliged to exempt the student from participating in the instructional activity or using the instructional material if the parent so requests, allow the student to leave the classroom and no academic penalty can be imposed upon the student related to that absence.
In an effort to limit the potential effect of the bill on classroom instruction, Alberta Education, after consulting with the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) and school boards, has issued guidelines to teachers and administrators that promote a narrow interpretation and application of the legislation. Assuming a business as usual position, the department states that the legislation was not intended to disrupt instruction or the discussion of controversial issues in the classroom and acknowledges that teachers and schools were effectively managing parental concerns relating to religion, sexuality and sexual orientation long before the passage of the controversial law.
In its 2010/11 Guide to Education, Alberta Education emphasizes that few courses would, by their nature, trigger the notification requirement. For the Health and Career and Life Management courses dealing with human sexuality, a policy-based requirement for parental notification and exemption option has been in place for years. With Bill 44, courses focussing on religion or with a component dealing with spirituality (for example, World Religions 30 and Aboriginal Studies 10) and a handful of CTS modules dealing with human sexuality now require advance notification to parents under the act. Although the department was willing to stipulate that, with these exceptions, the remaining content of the Alberta Program of Studies is outside the scope of the act, it was unwilling to make a similar statement about learning resources, including those it has authorized for use in the classroom.
Alberta Education indicates that separate school boards or schools offering faith-based programs are required to provide notice of their religious orientation to parents but may do so by including a statement on enrolment forms. There has been speculation in the media about the potential for a parent to register their child in a religiously oriented school or separate school and then, using the legislation, exempt that child from participating in classes or instructional activities of a religious nature. The scenario is not outlandish—a parent might well want to send a child to separate or religious school not out of a commitment to the religious character of the school but simply because of its location, facilities, culture or programming. Alarmed by what they see as a potential threat to the integrity of separate schools, some board officials have said that they would rely on existing constitutional protections for separate schooling to deny parents this option. Should this situation actually present itself, the underlying conflict of rights would likely need to be resolved before the courts.
But perhaps more important than what is covered by the amendments to the Human Rights Act, is what Alberta Education says is not covered. The department stresses that the legislation deals only with instructional activities and materials that deal “primarily and exclusively” [emphasis added] with sexuality, sexual orientation and religion and that the legislation does not apply to incidental or indirect references to such matters. Because topics such as evolution and the physiology and anatomy of human reproduction as covered in a science class are not intended to be explicitly about religion or sexuality, there is no requirement to notify parents and no associated right to exclude students from participation without academic penalty. Similarly, the discussion of gender identity or religion in a historical, current events or legal context, as might happen in a social studies class, would be unlikely to trigger the provisions of the act.
The Guide to Education also indicates that the legislation is limited to instructional activities and materials and, therefore, would not affect the teachers’ ability to address disciplinary or behavioural issues, including bullying related to religion, sexuality or sexual orientation.
There is, however, a certain degree of wishful thinking underlying Alberta Education’s guidelines. While teachers and school boards might agree with the department’s intentions and interpretation, and while the department encourages principals, teachers and parents to resolve disputes relating to the notification and exemption requirements at the school level or through existing board-based mechanisms, Bill 44 will bestow a new set of rights upon parents concerning the content of their children’s education. Ultimately individual parents will be empowered to demand notification and to direct that their children be exempted from participating in instructional activities that deal with the subject matter of the legislation. Whether or not a parent’s understanding of this right and its application is valid is not a matter for teachers, school boards or the minister of education to determine. Instead, this will fall to the Human Rights Commission and the lawyers to decide.
Generally, though, the government’s message to teachers aligns with the advice given by the Association—teachers should not allow the legislation to exert a chilling effect on their classroom practice. Rather, teachers should continue to exercise their professional judgment and common sense in those rare instances when they might be dealing with materials or content that might offend a parent’s moral or religious sensibilities. Teachers who find themselves involved in a dispute arising out of the education provisions of Bill 44 should contact ATA Member Services for advice and assistance.
An excerpt from the Guide to Education appears on page 4.
