Retired lawyer and former ATA staffer to receive top honour

A retired lawyer and a former ATA assistant executive secretary are being awarded honorary ATA memberships in recognition of their outstanding contributions to education and the teaching profession in Alberta.

Jacqueline (Jacquie) Skytt, ATA assistant executive secretary from 2009 to 2013, and Richard Rand, legal counsel to the ATA from about 1995 to 2022, will receive the awards at this year’s Annual Representative Assembly (ARA), which is scheduled to take place in Edmonton over the May long weekend.

Jacquie Skytt

Skytt began her teaching career at Sturgeon Composite High School, where she taught home economics and served as the school representative to the local in her very first year. Her teaching career and her involvement with the ATA progressed in tandem. 

Skytt served as her local’s Professional Development (PD) Committee chair, ARA delegate and vice–president. Even during her secondment to Alberta Education, she engaged in ATA activities as Alberta Education representative to the Home Economics Council. She also gained valuable experience as co-ordinator of curriculum and instruction for the Sturgeon School Division and as an Association instructor for the ATA.

Hired by the ATA as an executive staff officer in the PD program area in 1996, Skytt became PD co-ordinator in 2001. She became co-ordinator of Organizational Support in 2008 and then assistant executive secretary in 2009. 

During her time at the ATA, Skytt made significant contributions in many areas, with highlights including serving on the Blue Ribbon Panel on Special Education and organizing the professional learning communities project.

Skytt retired as assistant executive secretary in May 2013, but didn’t stay away long. 

Since “retiring,” Skytt established the Walking Together: Education for Reconciliation Project and supported the development of the Stepping Stones series; worked with the Inclusive Education Council on developing the Common Threads for Inclusive Education series; developed the School Leader Certification workshops; and was project manager and principal author of Professional Curriculum Analysis and Critique of Alberta Education’s 2021 Draft K–6 Curriculum.

Richard Rand

The son of an army captain, Rand grew up moving schools frequently and so saw many teachers in action over the years. As a lawyer, he wound up spending much of his career in service to teachers.

Called to the Alberta bar in 1975, Rand was appointed to Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Council) in 1998. Over the years, he primarily practised in family law and professional discipline cases.

While Rand’s administrative laws practice pertained to discipline for various professions—having been engaged by the Law Society of Alberta, the College of Alberta Psychologists, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta, the Alberta Pharmaceutical Association, the National Hockey League and the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association—he identifies the ATA work as the most significant and rewarding discipline case practice in which he engaged.

For nearly 27 years, Rand worked as legal counsel to the ATA hearing committees, providing advice at hearings of the ATA’s professional conduct committees, supporting the orientation and ongoing learning for members of these committees, and advising staff on practice and procedural matters.

In 2022, Rand wrote in defense of the teacher discipline procedures that had been in place for decades and were being removed from the ATA’s purview. Rand believed, and still does, that the system was good and fair and could not be improved upon.

With depth of wisdom, Rand upheld the integrity of the teaching profession in Alberta, serving the interests of both teachers and students well. ❚