Former Sal principal launches campaign to become EIPS trustee - Leduc Representative

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The race for the three Elk Island Public School trustee positions in Sherwood Park is getting crowded.

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There are now seven candidates in the race, including Cathy Allen, who is running for the first time as a trustee candidate.

Allen said education has been a big part of her life and she isn’t ready to walk away from it yet. She retired as the principal of Salisbury Composite High School two years ago.

“I was an educator for 40 years and loved my work. I feel as if this is the next step for me to still be serving the Elk Island community as well as the Sherwood Park community,” explained Allen.

The first-time candidate said she has moved around to many different schools and knows the system well.

“I was able to work from kindergarten to Grade 12 during my career. I worked as a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal and then a consultant,” she said.

The former principal said she has four areas that are her main focus if she is elected: funding for education, the draft curriculum, student mental health and the EIPS capital projects and infrastructure. Allen adds there are major issues with the draft curriculum.

“It needs revision and needs rewriting,” she said. “It hasn’t had the input from educators and they need to bring back teachers to the table in order to have them be the experts for content. It is not just social studies. It needs teachers to overhaul the entire curriculum.”

Allen said looking to the future of the divisions’ infrastructure also needs to be a focus as Sherwood Park is a growing population.

“Sherwood Heights has had work started. The value-scoping that was done also shows we have old buildings in the division and every year a school gets older and it is planning for what we need to be thinking of beyond the top two schools and continue with the plan,” Allen said.

Allen said she also has a lot of ideas to bring to the table to get the community more involved in education by developing programs to pair graduating students with residents in the profession they’d like to pursue.

“There are a lot of ways education is a team event and is not just the school and kids, it is the parents and community that should all be involved in public education,” Allen said.

You can find out more about Allen’s campaign at CathyAllenpsbt.com.

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Former Sal principal launches campaign to become EIPS trustee - Leduc Representative
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