In 2012 most schools are high security. We don’t frisk students before they go through a metal gate as in some US movies but we do have security cameras, locked doors, sometimes police officers assigned to the high school and signs at every entrance that visitors must report to the office.

I understand.  You just can’t be sure what strangers may do. Even parents have to have security checks before they can help out with field trip supervision or volunteer in the classroom.  But I think we also have to remember that the parent, the public, the taxpayer is not an intruder to the building actually, but its owner.  Not only does the public have a right to know what goes on here, but they actually as a group, in a democracy, are in charge. Our governments set up departments of education and school boards, our elected officials hire teachers, but all of these are answerable ultimately to the voter.

This idea intrigues me because when parents attend a meeting in 2012 to protest the closure of a neighborhood school, when they make submissions to the school board or host rallies or demonstrations about some issue for education, I think we must not consider them as outsiders, or even just as ‘stakeholders’, a voice among many. Their voice and the voice of their students are the voices that matter, as long as we make sure to hear from all of them not just one small group.

Naturally, just as we fund hospitals but trust doctors to give us educated opinions so too we hire teachers but also hopefully trust their expertise to advise on what courses, texts, skills are useful and how to teach them. But the public still runs the schools. The minister of education may seem intimidating and is, the school board superintendent has power but those are all powers granted by voters and the person holding them has to answer, in the end, to the public.

I make this point because it amazes me how deeply parents care about their kids and what ends they go to, to  ensure education. I see the parents saying goodbye to their little kids in the morning and I see love, and great belief that they are sending this child to a good place for a few  hours.  Why  not? They are paying for it to be good and if there is a problem, they  generally want to know what more they can do.  Right now many schools are cash-strapped and government funding is about 17% of the provincial budget for K-12 education. It used to be about 30%. The more health care gets, the less education gets, or so it seems. And yet time and time again parents are doing what they can to make sure the schools are OK. Parent groups are becoming not just vocal but media savvy, with websites and advocates . Fundraisers often collect a lot of money to help tide schools over, especially in the well to do districts. 

Parents may not always attend interviews about their offspring, but a solid core does go. They may not always make appointments to chat with school trustees or go to home and school evening meetings. They don’t all join parents councils and though in September  you often get a rush of parents willing to volunteer in the classroom at the primary level, by January many of those volunteers are not coming as often. But all that does not mean parents don’t care.  They turn out in huge numbers when a school is threatened for closure.  They slam the emails of legislators in Edmonton about whether to set in place kindergarten full day for 4 year olds.  Their cars line the pick up zones of every school in the city, every school day and they are deeply committed to schooling for their kids.

Enrolment in field trips is high. Special band tours, sailing trips for the junior highs, trips to Quebec for the French students, trips to Costa Rica for the Spanish class, to Heritage Park or the new Telus Spark science museum cost an extra fee and yet are heavily endorsed. Parents will give up a lot for the wellbeing of their kids.   But the direct line between what parents want and what schools are able to provide does not always seem clear. A lot of parents seem to feel helpless to change funding situations. They object to higher bussing fees, as well they might, but they may not realize that the solution is for the province to give more money to the schools as a higher budget priority.

A few years ago when there was a similar funding shortfall for Calgary schools, hundreds of high school students rallied downtown. They wanted to publicly object, to publicly show they want more priority given for their education. But they did not know actually where to object. Some thought of rallying outside the mayor’ s office but were quickly told the mayor is not in charge of schools.  Some thought of the school board building but were told that the school board is not to blame, that the funding problem is from the province. So the student march literally went from one place to another, down Macleod Trail, past city hall and the school board offices to the government house. The students rallied and chanted and in the thousands demanded more money for schools.  I was so moved, to tears nearly, and I felt it was one of education’s finest hours. This was the public speaking.

The premier at the time however refused to talk to them. He made it a policy, he said, to not talk to demonstrators and told them to all go home.  I was stunned. I really felt that kids at that moment were actually living the theory that they deserve a say in their education.

It is odd to think it radical to defend something traditional.  I continue  to be  proud of kids, the ones who keep the rules and slog away and the ones who shakily petition the principal for some thing they believe in like a school dance, or different lunchroom privileges. We must listen to their first tentative efforts to claim their rights and we must not fail them.  We may not be able to give in to their demands completely but they must always feel that they got something  from their effort because they do in fact have rights.

I am so proud of parents who dare to stand up too. Parents who are very high -maintenance, the ones the media lately dubs ‘helicopter parents’ for hovering too closely over the child, are often actually very good parents. They are strong advocates for their kids and I sometimes wish parents of the poor were nearly as feisty as children of the well-to-do for everybody deserves someone in their corner.  We should not think of the public as adversaries to the schools. They are partners in the system. They used to be and they still want to be. 

In earlier times, as today public went to great lengths to maintain a school.

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When people were first settling this area, few brought children.   They came as dreamers, and with little cash.  In 1867 a single man could get 100 acres of land free, a married man 200 acres.  By the 1870s there were enough children to make school a workable idea.   There were a few mission schools for natives, but nearly nothing for children of settlers.

 Since there were no schools, parents might just have a few lessons in their home. They would often send  their older children back east.  Upper Canada College in Toronto had operated since 1829. and there were good schools in Winnipeg.  Trinity College operated since 1865, Lakefield College in Ontario started in 1879. Ridley College in St. Catherine’s started in 1889.

Eventually though, enough children were here who could not afford to go away, that pressure was felt to set up schools. By 1880 a policy was set up that the Northwest Territory government would provide 30% of the money needed to set up a school but the local community had to find the other 70%.  This money was to be put together by taxing property. The issue then became if with little income from the land, there was enough cash to pay that tax and set up a school.   The territorial government said it would pay half the salary of the teacher some schools.

In 1881 settlers were sometimes living in sod huts themselves, some in tents or makeshift shacks. To have to create another building for a school would be expensive.  It cost about $120 in 1882 to build a one room shack with mud roof, one door, window and mud floor.   In 1890 some homesteader cabins were still so small you could wash, dress and eat without getting out of bed. The kitchen table was a wall shelf, the stove was on a box.  By 1900 some rural homes had log base or tarpaper walls and others were made of  stone.  But the dream was often that the school would be a better building than that, for it was for the children. In fact as early as 1892 trustees had to deal with concerns that teachers had to be very competent and a letter to the editor of the Calgary Herald in 1891 wanted to make sure trustees did not meet in private because how schools operate was of public concern.

If you were going to set up a school you had to plan for several costs. One was the land. You had to find a location and rent or buy the land. Second was the building. You had to build it and supply it in an ongoing way with water, furniture, books and an outhouse.  Third was the place for the teacher to live and a pay scale for that teacher.

The rule became that if a certain number of taxpayers in an area agreed a school was needed, they could ask government for permission to start setting one up. In 1884 anyone aged 21 or more, male or female, was allowed to vote for a school board member.  The North west territories had one group to oversee education and it had 12 members. They arranged hiring teachers, chose books and supplies to require and appointed inspectors to go around and make sure about attendance.   In 1894 for instance one rural area had to borrow $20 just to get a site to build a school.   Sometimes, as in the cities, the Hudson’s Bay Company could be talked into donating some of its land for a school.

The Northwest Territory Government believed in the right to an education and in the 1890s legislated that it would itself support and educate any boy under 16 or any girl under 14 who was homeless, orphaned, or abandoned and in poverty. 

Trustees decided where each school would be, not too far from a water source, maybe a well or creek but not too close to any pond that might have stagnant water in the spring either.  Trustees had to arrange to have lumber hauled to build the school sometimes 35 miles and this often meant they did it themselves.

The board had to also figure out where the teacher would live, and if a house was to be made for her, had to build it. This ‘teacherage’ in 1890 might be a homesteader cabin of logs, with a mud floor with buffalo robes on it or a lumber floor that had to be scrubbed.  Plans had to be made for how much to pay the teacher and how much to reduce that pay for renting the teacherage.

By 1895 the Northwest Territories had 58 public school districts. The Calgary board met once a month at Central school library. The school board decided the length of the school term and had to keep in mind weather, difficult roads to get to the school and the situation if children were needed to help out at home. In 1896 the school year in some rural areas was actually only summer months.

Many felt that schools would be not just a route to jobs but a kind of civilizing influence for early Calgary was a tough town. A set of hotel rules posted in 1888 said, half in jest, that the bar was open day and night, drinks costing 50 cents in the daytime and a dollar at night. You could buy insect powder at the bar and rent a saddle horse at any time of the day or night.  One rule of 1890 said that any person released from jail had to be given a hand gun, bullets and a horse to ride out of town.  Bars were all open by 9AM.

With Calgary growing fast, some trustees were anxious to push for a top quality school system saying in 1903 that expense was not to be a key problem because the public would approve whatever was needed. A few hundred dollars should not, as one trustee said, stand in the way.

When Alberta became a province  the new act said public education was to be universally available.  By then a lot of places had asked to set up schools and a school district was often about 16 square miles in size.   A local school board would operate each district. The idea was that every child should be able to get to a school somewhere relatively close to where they lived.  Any 3 taxpayers could petition to form a school district as long as the area served was under five miles in either direction and had at least 8 school aged children in it.

This rule of count of children created pressure of its own because if a family moved out of the district, taking its kids with it, this might force the school to close for the others who attended.  If the teacher’s job depended on at least 8 children attending, loss of a few students might also mean loss of a job.

Rural schools had the least ability to collect enough property tax. The city, with more people had it easier. With the ups and downs of weather and crop failures, homesteaders struggled.

When Alberta became a province, authority over the schools switched from the Northwest Territories.  Standards were set for the new province. The schools became a bastion of security in troubled times. When the Frank slide killed 70 people in 1902, when a hydrogen filled airship caught fire in 1908, when a mine explosion happened in southern Alberta in 1910, it was deemed important that children still have optimism and security. When the Hillcrest mine exploded in the Crowsnest pass in 1914  and 189 died, the schools reminded kids of life and hope.

What the government did not provide and property tax did not provide locally, residents tried to provide themselves.  In 1906 when there was no money for a rural school to buy desks, farmers each made some for their own kids and brought them to the school. This worked well in most cases though stories are told of a few  desks collapsing with use.

In 1906 Premier Rutherford had an idea of how to make sure school students had textbooks. He set up a tax of $1.25 an acre on rural land to generate $14,000 to buy books.

What happened in Calgary though is that every time the city annexed land, the bills rose. Suddenly in 1907 for instance, Calgary now included Bridgeland, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, and the city had an obligation to provide more schools. Fortuntely because of the greater number of residents and bigger tax base it could sometimes afford to build them. Crescent Heights was established as its own school district but it too later joined Calgary.

In 1907 typical costs to set up a school included $3 for each desk and seat, $6 for a chair for the teacher, $8 for a blackboard four by ten feet, 80 cents for a bell, $6.50 for a clock, 25 cents for a pointer, $25 for a globe, $16 for a desk for the teacher.

School boards decided that chools were venues to celebrate good government and they made occasions for the children out of national events. In 1910 Empire Day was declared as the first school day before May 24th. On this day children were to study history and hear inspiring addresses.

In 1911 in some areas homesteaders had not been able to clear all the land so they did not bring in much money. If their plan was to work manual labor jobs winters to help make ends meet, that did not always work either if there were few manual labor jobs.  The result was that very early on, homesteaders defaulted occasionally on their school property tax.

 In 1914 community ladies held bake and craft sales to raise money for extras the teacher might need, like an organ, Victrola records or  a piano. Though officially the system would not buy these items, the community tried to provide them.  There were fundraisers in Calgary because one parent group wanted masterpieces of art in every classroom and if visual aids or radios were wanted, there was a parent fundraiser to enable it.

To help build a school, floor plans were made available in the Eaton’s catalogue. The materials to build them, including all  lumber, could also be ordered. A school 20 feet wide, 30 feet long and 10 feet high could be purchased for $683. A school 22 by 30 by 10 cost $724. A school building 24 by 32 by 12 cost $829. Those numbers may sound small today but it took a lot of payers to get that money together.

If the community could not send students to school during harvest time, the board shifted the school term. School holidays were adjusted by the school board. In 1910 start up in the fall was not till mid September.  If the community needed trees as shelter belts and most did, Arbour Day was set aside to make sure small children got saplings to plant.

The public, by way of school boards made policy too. It was the practical side of a theoretical- so when war came, school boards did something about it. In 1916 some boards decided that all single male teachers should not only be allowed to enlist but encouraged, and did not renew their teaching contracts. In 1918 a military base west of Calgary at Sarcee had 40,000 men. Parents insisted on input into school decisions and women became vocal as the men had to leave. In 1916 a group of mothers confronted the school board to make sure that policy was not made without them.

In 1918 during the Spanish flu epidemic, schools coped. At first kids wore masks soaked with eucalpytus when they came to class, but the flu came in waves and eventually all schools were shut down.  Public meetings were banned. Stanley Jones and Victoria schools were turned into temporary hospitals.   One school room used for manual training now became a morgue. Schools remained closed Nov 15 1918 to Jan 15 1919 so caretakers could scrub them down completely and disinfect everything. 

As soldiers started returning from the war, some injured, Victoria school set up typing and shorthand classes for those convalescing.  The city lost some of its own during the war. Western Canada High alone lost 40 recent students in the first war.

School boards set standards and then had to make them do-able. If children needed fresh water, the board had to arrange a system, maybe students or a local neighbor bringing pails of water from the creek several times a day. Since the building needed heat, the board had to figure out what stove to purchase and who to hire to bring the wood or coal for it, where to store that wood or coal and who to pay to stoke the fire. In 1918 for instance it was common for a board to decide that two children, appointed by the teacher each day, would go one quarter of a mile to get water and bring it back in two pails.

After the war, when money was scarce, boards adapted. In 1920 government decided that  if a farmer let a teacher reside at his home, he could get a tax break. This freed up a lot of places for teachers to live in , or ‘teacherages’ little houses of their own on someone’s land.  It made it more affordable for the district to have a teacher and the farmer got a tax benefit.

In 1920 trustees argued that the schools should provide free milk to students in need and toothbrushes for sale at cost. By 1920 as they could afford it, school boards provided better and better schools.  Often the school was the most solid building in the community. A rural school built then usually had a wood frame, gable roof, was painted white, had 4 or 5 big windows on the west wall, a bell tower, and often an enclosed porch. 

In 1926 some schools even sold shares at $10 each to raise money and when William Aberhart taught at Crescent Heights he even taught the students how to raise money. He created a company and sold students shares in it, then bought a movie projector and showed movies to students from many schools. Profits built up and at the end of the year the company returned some of the profit to the original investors as dividends.

But by 1930 crops were failing. Over the next few years the fields were hit by grasshopper infestations, Russian and Canadian thistle, plagues of army cutworms.  Drought and hail added to the problems and year after year it was one disaster after another. The Depression forced many settlers to give up. Many ‘rode the rails’ looking for jobs back east in the mines or out west in BC in forestry.  Children’s lives, already challenged by homesteading itself, were in bigger crisis as money faltered and there was not even enough to provide new clothes or ample meals.    Yet the schools coped.   The province started to live on a dream of better times later, and was nicknamed “next year country”.

When caterpillars infested the area, teachers swept out the schools more regularly. When mosquitoes plagued the classroom, teachers set up smudge pots burning green and old grass in a tin, to make smoke that discouraged the insects.  If a prairie field caught fire nearby, teachers and kids grabbed gunny sacks, soaked them in water from the school pump and ran to beat out the flames. Small children were herded to black loam patches where the fire would not cross. Everybody mobilized; everybody coped.

In 1930 some schools operated 8 months only, not even expecting children to go through winter blizzards to the building. When desks were needed, rules were set down of what they should be like but many rural areas then had local farmer again build them. In 1931 a blackboard in one rural school was just oilcloth with slate on top. Desks were homemade and ten inches wide, 3 feet long and sat two children.  While the city’s supplies were now professionally made, rural areas still counted on a lot of community help.

The value of all buildings in Calgary dropped. A house that had cost $1500 in 1911 by 1930 sold for $100.  Even the school buildings designed with possibly an eye to selling them later as boarding houses, could not.  The schools also, like the residents, rode out the storm.

In 1931 when 2000 people rallied outside city hall to protest unemployment, their kids were still in school.  As protest marches and strikes happened over the next few years and the city scrambled to set up subsidies for rent and light, grocery vouchers and free food for the poor, the schools too were working to make sure all who came to their doors were fed.  The income of many homes was chaotic in those years but parents tried to shield their young from the worst of it, and so did the schools.

By 1933 the Alberta government itself was nearly bankrupt. So few people had jobs or could pay taxes that even government defaulted on its loan payments to major banks.  Would education also have to be cut?  There is where you see character and priorities. All efforts were made to keep the schools open.  In Edmonton in 1935 schools moved to a four day week but did not shut down.  Some schools in the 1930s reduced the school year by 8 – 11 days but did not close them.

The public insisted on its rights. In 1934 some students went on a five day strike to ensure they got adequate milk allowance.   By 1934 many boards could not afford to pay the teacher, could not even afford to do needed repairs of the school and yet the community pitched in. If the kids were to play with a ball and bat, and the ones they had were worn out, a new ball was made out of twine, rags and string, a bat was carved out of a tree branch. There was always a way.

In 1933 when teachers realized that some high school students were dropping out of class simply because they could not buy textbooks, fundraisers were held to get them the money to stay. In 1934 when some kids were not appearing at school because they did not have shoes that fit any more, the teacher and school board arranged for them to get shoes.   There was now a huge gap between rich and poor. In 1932 a sofa and chair cost $70, a car cost $685, unaffordable for most families.

When government fish and wildlife departments wanted to help out with the tragic crop failures, the idea was conceived of reducing the population of gophers destroying the fields.  If hawks and crows could be reduced in numbers, farmers would have an easier chance, so a system was set up in 1934 after 6 straight years of crop failure.  Kids would help.

Government would pay a child a penny for each gopher tail, each egg from a crow, hawk or magpie, any proof they could bring in that they had killed them. For kids this was a game, but it also provided needed money for the home. The venue to pay the kids was the school. Kids would bring in their pails of bird legs, eggs, gopher tails in buckets and the teacher had to count them, fill out forms and provide the coins.  When there was a bounty on rabbits, when kids were paid to bring in rabbits’ feet, it was the schools that had to administer the program, and they did.

In 1935 after the province had made big cuts to its spending on education in the Depression, people were angry.  Fourteen Calgary women organized a protest rally and 1500 people assembled at the Grand Theatre asking for more funds for education.

Meanwhile the schools coped with poverty too. In 1937 if the school bell broke, the teacher mended it with a screwdriver handle and bolt clapper.  Hey this is in fact Alberta where improvising was  a way of life. When the province was formed, some still recalled, there was no fancy mace to use to open the legislature so the first one was crafted out of An ornately covered bathroom pipe. That plunger is still on display at the legislature in 2012.

Hoping the community would pitch in became a way of life and was even made fun.  In 1937 a box social might be held so young single men purchased lunches prepared by single women and the funds went to buy what the school needed – maybe a baseball, maybe toys to give out at the school Christmas concert.  The school building became a site not just of lessons during the day but of dances at night. Desks were pushed aside, people danced, a lunch was served at midnight and the party wound down, sometimes with a bonfire and a singsong, around 3AM.  The school was a place where somehow there was still laughter, camaraderie and a community celebrating life. People would come from 50-75 miles around in their wagons, on horseback, on foot.

In winter a skating party was a lot of work, but kids were keen to set it up, shovelling snow, getting wood for a bonfire and young adults from around the community pitched in to make it a celebration.

By 1937 there were nearly 4000 school districts in Alberta, so many that they had been organized into larger units, eleven school divisions.   The division not the board was now the one that hired teachers and supervised schools. At one point the province had 5,000 one room schools. Then when roads improved, it seemed wiser to have some of these schools joined and students travelled greater distances for higher learning.

Again schools made accommodations for the community’s needs.  In 1939 when war was declared and a rush of young men and women left the farm, teens who were still here were needed to work the land. Many schools changed their school year to start Oct 11 and then end July 31 to enable that. The school inspector could not bring much when he visited the school but he tried. He brought magazines, sometimes National Geographic and sometimes a $25 voucher for the teacher to order books.

When kids were so poor they barely had food to eat, they still came to school and in the war years teachers were told the last resort principle- do whatever it takes to keep the school open.  Sometimes the teacher would boil a pot of water on the stove and would bring potatoes and vegetables as she could, and make soup for the kids at lunch. 

When things were so tough that people were eating Russian thistle, when there was so little money people boiled barley for coffee, the schools were still open. When families were so poor that those who had a phone could not afford to pay to operate it, when those who had radios could not even afford batteries for them, the schools were still open. When nobody had much, kids took turns bringing a pail of milk to the rural school, someone added cocoa and they all had a hot beverage at lunch. When cars were no longer affordable and gas was rationed, kids still arrived, some in stone boats, flat sleds made to haul rocks, but now pulled by horse to deliver kids to the building.  When parents took the motors out of their cars and had the new “Bennett buggy ‘pulled by horse, they still used it to bring kids to school.

During the war, schools stepped up to the plate as it were, to again encourage patriotism. Soldiers again drilled near school fields. Students again joined platoons and got cadet training.  The respect for order was so intense that Calgary High was itself organized in 1940 on a platoon system.

When money was needed to support the troops and war savings stamps were offered, kids bought them at 25 cents each, worked to get the certificate for having bought $5 worth, and the schools helped with contests to award them. When the city was alert to war crises, and set up air raid drills, it was the schools that had to also help young children cope with this without panic. School boards worked hard to make sure every child still had a good childhood.

When the Red Cross wanted to help soldiers, and programs were set up to give metal or rubber, the schools helped collect them. Scrap metal and iron from broken farm machines, even tin foil wrappers were collected to melt down for army equipment.  Clean rags, lard, grease and aluminum were collected, even dried animal bones to use for ammunitions. Rags were used for seating pads in tanks.  Kids were given cotton and wool from the Red Cross to make facecloths, socks, afghan squares for blankets.  Some schools listened to war news on the radio and many wrote letters to soldiers and sent small gifts to cheer the troops.  Kids collected rubber, elastic bands, even old boots or tires to be made into tires for the military or into oxygen masks. 

The community held quilting bees to raise money for the Red Cross and all along, the schools helped collect, create, send.

In 1944 some schools were used by the military itself. Western was used after hours to train soldiers in trades. One cottage school became a communications centre and other schools were casualty clearing stations and refugee depots.

What the board could provide was often very little and yet it tried. In 1944 one rural school bought the teacher one ball, one bat, two boxes of white chalk but also was thoughtful enough to add two boxes of colored chalk.  Little children were always intrigued by colored chalk.

77,703 Albertans enlisted in the second world war and 3350 did not return. The schools were right along with the suffering, many families having lost a relative or welcoming someone now injured. School boards  tried hard to keep childhood a time of some joy too.  After the war, school boards continued to try to attract teachers and to set up ways to pay the bills. In 1946 across the province  they asked the provincial government for grants to cover half the operating costs of the schools.

After 1947 when oil was found at Leduc, government had more money to help fund schools better.  By 1949 rural teacherages were often upgraded. They now might be painted white and have a little rock garden beside.

School boards changed faces every few elections but their mission did not change- they were the public, they were to always oversee the schools. So in 1955 when parents wanted kindergarten, boards set it up. When parents wanted no stigma for students who took a non academic route, schools joined their technical and academic high schools into one type- the composite high.

 In 1962 technical and vocational high schools were able to get funding from the federal government, so there were now three levels of possible funds – local, provincial and federal. And all along, school boards worked to make sure kids got a good education, and listened to what their parents wanted for them. It was a priority.

Schools became in the 1970s centres of environmentalism, encouraging recycling of paper. In 2012 most classrooms have bins for recycling papers, and most schools also recycle plastics, bottles and tin cans. Some even compost leftovers from school lunches. Many teachers have projects to encourage students to think of the wider community, making scarves and tuques for those in homeless shelters, sponsoring third world schools.  It is the school being sensitive to its bigger world.

In Calgary some of our schools have even been named after activist school trustees for good reason. They were advocates for the dream.  One of the ways to ensure it that they set up was also the school inspection.