Teacher Attraction and Retention

Last night I participated in a "teacher attraction and retention" project as part of parent council for Hillside Community School. All of the Parent Councils from the school district were invited to the library at Hillside and representatives from a few other schools were there. We were told by the consultant that there will be a spike in children starting school in the next 3-5 years and attracting and retaining new teachers will be even more important than it currently is. We started by choosing a photo out of several that the consultant set out on the table, the photo that best described what teachers meant to us. Then we listed the positive and negative aspects of the profession, finally we talked about how we could solve the problem.

What can we do to attract teachers to Grande Prairie and keep them here? More importantly- and what I find to be the real issue- how do we attract more people to the profession? I suggested that if education were properly funded more kids would consider a career in teaching. Its one of the toughest jobs and we constantly ask them to do more with less. We need to support education and make it a top priority.

If you've never participated in this kind of project and ever have the opportunity I highly recommend it. Was it a success in the sense that the consultant got the answers he required? I dont know, but it made us think about our teachers and what we can do as parents to support them.

Traffic Circles

My initial reaction to the plan to put two roundabouts in the downtown area of Grande Prairie was a negative one. I dont have the confidence that the general public is going to take to this change well. I think quite a few people will be confused, the change from one way to two way alone is going to take a real adjustment period. But the more information I get about this plan the better it sounds and I admit, Im starting to warm up to the idea.

There is a difference between traffic circles and roundabouts, though we tend to use both words to describe one thing. You dont see many true traffic circles here and I suspect that when comments about other countries taking traffic circles out are made the roundabouts that are planned for Grande Prairie are not what is being talked about. Roundabouts are a lot less confusing and depending on the details of this plan, they could work really well.

This is a matter I will be paying close attention to, especially as a downtown business owner. The general public needs more information about this plan, and I am on a quest for knowledge:)