The ATA’s Alberta School Learning Commons Council (ASLC) has wrapped up its operations.
Provincial Executive Council voted at its April meeting to disband the longtime specialist council because membership numbers were too low for the council to be viable.
Association guidelines require councils to maintain at least 100 active and associate members. Failure to do so for 12 consecutive months results in the council’s operations being reviewed. During a review, the council’s membership, programs and finances are analyzed to determine whether it makes sense for the Association to continue to fund the council as a stand-alone subgroup.
The review of the ASLC found that the council had not met the 100 member threshold since the 2018/19 school year, due largely to a sharp decline in the number of teacher–librarians in the province over the past two decades. Although ASLC executive members engaged in recruitment and advocacy efforts at multiple conferences and teachers’ conventions, these activities did not result in a sustained increase to council membership.
Councils with small membership have difficulty converting grants provided by the Association into programs and services for members, said ATA president Jason Schilling. The review of the ASLC found that the council had a significant surplus and was having difficulty converting these funds into supports for council members.
“It’s unfortunate when a specialist council no longer has the numbers to keep going,” Schilling said. “In this instance, PEC made the difficult decision to wind the specialist council up.”
Since 1961, a number of specialist councils have been reviewed, merged and dissolved. Most recently, in 2010, the Gifted and Talented Education Council merged with the Special Education Council (now the Council for Inclusive Education).
The decision to wind up the ASLC doesn’t mean that the Association won’t provide programs and services to support teachers and school leaders regarding misinformation, artificial intelligence, inclusive text selection, responses to book bans and other areas of concern for ASLC members, Schilling said.
“It simply means that these supports will no longer be provided through the funding of a stand-alone specialist council.”
The Learning Commons Council was one of the ATA’s 21 specialist councils. The councils are run by teacher volunteers and are organized according to areas of specialty related to curriculum subject areas, grade groupings, and TQS and LQS competencies. Councils organize professional development events, resources and communities of practice to help their members increase their pedagogical and leadership knowledge and skills.
FACT
History
The ASLC was first founded in 1965 as the Learning Resources Council. It became the Alberta School Library Council in 2006. It became the Alberta School Learning Commons Council in 2016.
Membership
In 2003/04, 12.7 per cent of Alberta schools had a designated teacher–librarian. Currently, there are only between 10 and 20 teacher–librarians employed in Alberta schools. Of the 103 members the ASLC had in 2014, 58 have retired.
