Tag Archives: epsb

Recap: Elect Michael Janz Campaign Benefit Brunch

By Mack D. Male ·

This morning Sharon and I joined a few dozen other fans and supporters of Michael Janz at the City Arts Centre for a benefit brunch for Michael’s campaign. Michael is running for Public School Trustee in Ward F, which means he’s been working extremely hard since at least May to talk with as many people as possible. Voter turnout in the 2007 election was abysmal, and it was even worse for school trustees, so it’s important to get the word out.

There was lots of coffee, thankfully, and a tasty breakfast prepared by some very dedicated volunteers! The event was a good opportunity to chat with others who care about what Michael is doing. Michael did give a short presentation as well, updating us on how is campaign is going, highlighting key campaign points, thanking volunteers, and outlining the work ahead as we inch closer to October 18.

I really like Michael’s position that the school board has a greater impact on our communities than just on the schools within them. I think that was made abundantly clear earlier this year with the school closures that took place. I encourage you to check out Michael’s site for more information on his priorities, but here are the key bullet points to whet your appetite:

  • Work to keep schools open.
  • Transform schools into community spaces.
  • Support students with special needs.
  • Empower and engage citizens.
  • Ensure a well-funded education system.
  • Make the school board more accessible.

I’d also encourage you to check out this article that Michael wrote on the issue of special education.

Elect Michael Janz

You can see a few more photos from the event here. You can follow Michael on Twitter, on Facebook, or you can email him. Election day is October 18.

Mapping where Edmonton’s kids live and learn

By Mack D. Male ·

On Friday evening, an interactive map I worked on with Edmonton Journal education reporter Sarah O’Donnell went live. Sarah’s first story based on the data was published in the paper today. Here’s our introduction to the project:

With five schools closing in Edmonton’s core and nine new suburban schools opening in September, education reporter Sarah O’Donnell wondered, “Just where do children live?” Local programmer Mack Male worked with The Journal to create an interactive map showing at a glance where children live and where they learn.

Here’s the map we created:

You can also see the map on ShareEdmonton here.

We showed a little of this at MediaCamp a few weeks ago, citing it as an example of traditional media and new media working together to tell a story. Newspapers like the New York Times often publish interactive story elements of course, but this is fairly new for the Journal. And I think it’s just the beginning!

I wanted to share a few notes on how the map was built:

It was an interesting experience for me! We had to double-check the data many times, and had to make decisions about how much/little to show. In that way, it was more like writing words than building a map. Thanks to Sarah for working with me on this!

Here’s what Sarah wrote in her story:

Nine new suburban schools will open next September; like Sister Annata Brockman, some will be close to capacity from the moment they open their doors. One look at a map of where children live shows why.

Most neighbourhoods with the highest number of children are on the city’s fringes. Those are the communities where the new schools are opening.

I was hoping the map would result in some discussion, and it has. Beth Sanders blogged about it this afternoon. She tackles the issue, highlighting as others have that city planning doesn’t “just happen”, rather its the result of many decisions made over time. We need to align our decisions – City Council and EPSB need to be on the same page! Beth finishes with some thoughts on open data:

The City of Edmonton, in creating and providing open source data, is providing a critical feedback loop for Edmontonians to understand how the city we are creating works. There are exciting conversations ahead in Edmonton’s future.

I agree completely. Kudos to the City of Edmonton, Edmonton Public Schools, and Edmonton Catholic Schools for making the data available for this mapping project. I’m positive it is just the first of many tools to come that will help Edmontonians better understand the data and contribute to the future of the city.

If you have any feedback on the map, let me know!

Learning about the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation

By Mack D. Male ·

Yesterday I attended an information session at Evansdale School on the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation, which launched on February 10. I admit I hadn’t even heard of the foundation until Jeremy mentioned the information sessions to me! I’m glad he did, because it was really interesting to learn about.

Our host for the session was Sandra Woitas, the director of the foundation. She has had a long history with Edmonton Public Schools as a teacher, consultant, and principal. After everyone had introduced themselves, we heard a little about Evansdale School and some of the unique programs it hosts. Next, Sandra welcomed two high school students who spent a few minutes talking about the experiences they have had during their time in the Edmonton Public School system. After that, we got into the information. Sandra gave an excellent overview of the foundation and how it came to be. Here are my notes:

  • The idea for the foundation came in 1996 from then Superintendent Dr. Emery Dosdall. He wanted to include a broad selection of stakeholders to help raise the profile of Edmonton Public Schools.
  • For the next decade or so, the idea floated between administration and the trustees. It wasn’t until trustee Bev Esslinger revived the idea that the ball got rolling again.
  • The foundation is meant to serve the 70% of Edmontonians who pay school taxes but don’t have a connection to the schools (either no kids, or their kids have graduated, etc).
  • In addition to raising the profile of Edmonton Public Schools, the foundation will advocate for improving public education here in Edmonton.
  • One of the areas of focus for the foundation is early childhood education. As Sandra said a few times, “either you pay now or you pay later.” To that end, they hope to raise money for early learning.
  • Full-day kindergarten programs would be one beneficiary. The first was setup at Norwood school thanks to a donation of $78,000 from Denny Andrews. Based on the success of that program, 24 other full-day kindergarten programs were setup throughout the city. There are apparently 15 more on a waiting list.

To finish off the session we were treated to a quick tour of Evansdale School. The school is multicultural, with students from over 40 countries! It also features a number of unique community outreach programs. We visited the full-day kindergarten classroom, and a music class as well. The SMART board in the kindergarten classroom surprised me – I learned that every classroom in the school has one! It was really great to see.

Edmonton Public Schools Foundation

Everyone who attended the session left with gifts! You can see the Evansdale mug, and the beautiful placemat created by a grade six student at the school. The bag of seeds came with a little explanation from Sandra: “what we’re doing with the foundation right now is planting seeds.”

If you’d like to support the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation, tell a friend about it! Or consider attending the fundraising breakfast on May 20 (on ShareEdmonton).

Edmonton Public Schools & Open Data

By Mack D. Male ·

Today I’m very excited to announce that Edmonton Public Schools has taken a big step into the world of open data by releasing a data set containing information on all of their schools, including the six opening later this year. I understand the data will be made available in the City of Edmonton’s Open Data Catalogue early next week, but you can download the CSV file today if you like.

Download the Edmonton Public Schools Data in CSV

Back in early February I met Jeremy and Paul for lunch to chat about open data and the community here in Edmonton. One of the things we talked about was how Edmonton Public Schools could get involved. In addition to attending events like the Open City Workshop, Jeremy and his team also started working behind-the-scenes to pull together data that might be useful to share. I helped define the fields that should be included and did the geocoding work, but they did all the rest. The result is a great data set of public schools in Edmonton, containing the name, address, lat/long, grade levels, programming information, and contact details for each.

Edmonton Public Schools follows in the footsteps of the Edmonton Public Library in embracing open data. Both organizations should be applauded for being “early adopters” and for their enthusiastic participation in the open data movement here in Edmonton. They have set an example that others can follow. Specifically:

  • Start small! EPL released branch locations, EPSB released school locations.
  • Work with the community! In both cases, I was able to help with some of the work. There are many others in the community who are eager to help as well.
  • Engage the City! In addition to getting the data in the catalogue, which is really important to have a central repository, the City has also offered some suggestions for improvements.

Thank you to Jeremy and the rest of the team at Edmonton Public Schools for making this happen!

No post about a new data set would be complete without mentioning that the data is now available at ShareEdmonton! You can now see a list of all public schools and on the details page for each one, you can see the relevant school ward, grade level, and programming information on the right side (for example, McNally, the high school I attended). More improvements coming soon!

Back to high school to congratulate Mr. Rice

By Mack D. Male ·

Yesterday I took a trip down memory lane and revisited my old high school, McNally. I’ve been back a few times since graduating in 2001, but yesterday’s trip had a very specific purpose – I went to congratulate my old principal, George Rice, on his retirement. I found out this was his last year a few months ago via Megan who has been teaching at McNally this year. Helps to have people on the inside ;)

I passed the news along to a few friends including Sharon who suggested we get former students to sign a card for George. As those of you with Facebook know, that project started a month ago or so. Megan arranged to have a small item added to yesterday’s staff meeting, and Sharon and I took the card to present to George along with Megan and Anna (another graduate from my year who is teaching at McNally). We managed to get at least one graduate from each year since 1997 sign the card, which I thought was pretty amazing. This was his 14th year as principal at McNally, and I know there are students from each year that are grateful he was their principal.

Walking into the staff meeting was kind of neat – there are a lot of teachers there that I remember, and they clearly remembered us. Nice to see people smile when you enter the room! Megan and I said a few words, and a few of the ladies shed some tears. George smiled and thanked us, shaking my hand and giving Sharon a hug. A few stories were shared, and then we let them finish the staff meeting. We walked around the school a bit too – it looks mostly the same except for the courtyard which is beautiful! You can see pictures here.

You might think it’s odd that I would be so interested in going back to see my high school principal, but I don’t. I spent a lot of time in the office during my three years at McNally, for both good and bad reasons! I was heavily involved in Students Union (finishing as Co-President with Sharon), I was the student rep on School Council, and I was McNally’s student rep for the Superintendent’s Advisory Committee. Bad reasons include conflicts with teachers, and things I’d rather not mention ;) Needless to say, I saw a lot of Mr. Rice and developed a good relationship with him.

Generally speaking, I don’t think we realize or appreciate the effect someone has had upon us until it’s too late to thank them for it. I know George had a positive impact on me, always providing encouragement and leadership. I am glad I had the opportunity to thank him for it.

In case you’re wondering, George isn’t taking much time off! He’s planning to take a short vacation and then he’ll be making a bid to become a school board trustee. I wish him all the best!