Homelearning Advocacy and Support Association of Alberta - HASAA

All hands on deck!

We're still looking for help to provide support and advocacy for homeschoolers in alberta. Please contact us today if you're interested in helping out.

Homelearning Advocacy and Support Association of Alberta - HASAA Send a message to learn more

We are looking for some support to improve our current website. If you have a few hours a week and the skills to do some expansion and upkeep, please let us know!

Hi everyone!

We are looking for some help. Several board positions are open, notably Secretary and Vice President, and we are in urgent need of people with web development and finance skills to support our existing Treasurer and Technical Services Director. We'll be posting the 'job specs' over the next few days, so keep an eye out. Please note that you do need to be a member to take a position, but donated memberships are available if the cost is prohibative.

Hello everyone, our annual broad homeschooling survey is hot off the (virtual) presses!

This is the survey we primarily use to inform our advocacy and it is a powerful tool to communicate the needs and opinions of the homeschooling community at large - both to the school boards and to the Ministry of Education. Last year we were very successful in advocating for simplified reimbursement rules using the results from this survey, and we hope to have similar advocacy success this year.

It should take no more than 10 minutes to complete unless you choose to make a comprehensive response to the open-ended final question.

It is completely anonymous, although it requires a google/gmail sign-in of some kind to access it (the emails are NOT available to us, this is simply a method of ensuring that no-one takes the survey more than once).

Please take a few minutes to fill it out, and then share it far and wide anywhere that Albertan homeschoolers (virtually) gather - we try hard to capture the experiences and opinions of ALL home learning families in Alberta, and this year that was a lot of people!

In particular, we are trying to capture the experience of those who homeschooled only because of COVID, and those who took advantage of the new 'no-funding' option, but of course all the usual questions for long term homeschoolers are in there as well.

Here is the link:

HASAA Homeschooling Survey 2021 This is a 8-10 minute survey to establish the composition, needs and priorities of homeschoolers in Alberta. Please answer all questions as completely as you can. Results will be shown at the end of the survey, and a report will be available on our website once a substantial number or responses are....

The 2020 HASAA AGM will take place (virtually, over Zoom) on Saturday, October 24th, 2020 at 3:30 pm. A video-meeting link and call-in option will be sent to all members in good standing a day or two prior to the event.

We will be making a membership push prior to the AGM, to ensure that any and all home learners who wish to be part of HASAA going forward have that opportunity.

To ensure that all members receive their link, if you are considering joining please ensure that all new memberships are purchased no less than 48 hours before the AGM begins.

How Snakes Fly (Hint: It's Not On A Plane) A snake researcher always wondered how flying snakes propelled themselves. Then, someone told him he should work with the snakes in "The Cube" – a vast theater space with cameras everywhere.

Regarding the current protests happening in the US and all over Canada and the world: HASAA is an anti-racist organization. This means we stand against racism in all its forms, and recognize that we live in a racist society.

Current atrocities against Black people in the US are unconscionable. But the US is not alone in its treatment of minorities by organizations of power, such as the police, education systems, politicians, mortgage companies, and, frankly, private citizens. In Canada, Black people have a long history of mistreatment by the same organizations and power structures, and by individuals.

The recent deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in the United States, like those of Regis Korchinski-Paquet and Chantel Moore here in Canada, are simply the most recent examples of that fact, and the protests and demonstrations of the past week are an inevitable result of it.

For Indigenous people of this land: Our history is full of Indigenous erasure, murder and cultural genocide. Canadians have blood on our hands.

We understand that our membership may struggle with the terrible violence South of our boarder. It is grotesque to see rubber bullets shot in the faces of protesters. We stand with the BIPOC community, both south of the boarder, in our country and worldwide.

The Board of Directors is very pleased to report that today's meeting with Education Minister LaGrange went very well. We shared our survey results, with an emphasis on the preponderance of special needs families in the homelearner population, and the surprisingly large proportion of low-income families
She agreed with us that the current reimbursement standards are more complex than they need to be, and promised they will be simpler next year. We had requested a return to the pre-50%-cap model of the 2014-2015 school year, and that notion met with a very favourable reception.
We also expressed concern regarding the loss of ADLC, and she stated that the preferred funding that is currently being given to ADLC will be spread around to other school boards providing distance learning options. The expectation is that this will allow other platforms to provide teacher training and a collaborative, individual approach to students - both things that up to now have been unique to ADLC.

We will be communicating further with the Minister's staff regarding ADLC and distance learning resources in general. In particular, we are advocating for less-than-full load programs within distance learning, for students who are unable to carry a full load.

Please let us know if you have any stories or concerns that we should be bringing forward as we work toward a system that will meet everyone's needs.

Many families are now faced with questions regarding options for schooling. At HASAA we’ve already heard from families asking about what homeschooling entails in Alberta, who are curious about the support they will receive. These are scary times and it can be difficult to respond to such a quickly changing situation.

Generally, if you’ve been satisfied with your child’s schooling, our recommendation is to wait and see what support your current school and school board is offering. Go from there.

Some people may have been curious about taking the plunge into full on homeschooling, and In the next few days we will be offering resources as to what home education in Alberta looks like and entails.

That said: whether the plan is to home educate or to follow your school at home, know we are here for you, offering support and resources.

Finally, if you’ve been home educating all along, we know this situation is one that is rapidly changing for you also - some of the meet ups, classes and groups you’ve come to expect have been cancelled. Let us all work together to maintain support and information in this trying time.

We, at HASAA are here for you.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/covid-coronavirus-update-hinshaw-alberta-edmonton-1.5498467