Alberta businesses are celebrating more than a decade of partnerships with schools across the province.

But some public-education advocates are still concerned about the inherent risks in allowing corporations unfettered access to the classroom.

As school boards in Edmonton and Calgary continue to forge new relationships with the business community, officials in charge of co-ordinating the programs say the partnerships are taking many forms – including mentorships, work experience, providing equipment and high-tech services, or simply having companies share their human resources with both students and teachers.

“In our definition, a partnership does not speak to money, it speaks to human resources . . . they’re giving their time, expertise and knowledge to help kids,” says Doug Clovechok, chair of the education training committee for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the non-profit Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation, the only organization of its kind in western Canada.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Alex Park at Shaw Communications says school partnerships are healthy for business.

“Businesses never wanted schools to be training grounds,” adds Clovechok, whose group helps link private-sector resources to the education system. “And what we’ve seen over the last 10 years is a move towards providing a more seamless transition (to the workplace) for kids.”

In Edmonton, public school board partnership co-ordinator Alva Shewchuk credits outgoing superintendent Emery Dosdall for helping more than 300 partnerships blossom across the system’s 209 public schools.

During his six-year term, Dosdall removed the layer of associate superintendents that used to oversee principals, and combined with decentralized site-based management and budgeting, helped give principals the latitude to run their school’s operations like businesses.

“He stepped to the plate and took on the philosophy of how we can work collaboratively with the business community,” says Shewchuk, who hopes the incoming superintendent, when selected, will share Dosdall’s “innovative” vision.

Edmonton schools, says Shewchuk, thrive on their connections with business. Centre High in downtown Edmonton, for example, has the Champion program, in which corporate partners “sponsor” individual rooms within the school and offer networking opportunities for returning Grade 12 students.

But is it the role of the education system to create business-savvy students ready for the marketplace?

“I would say yes, it is,” says Shewchuk. “That’s our job. And as a parent, that’s what I believe.”

But some critics disagree. Erika Shaker, education project director with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says it’s hard today to find a school anywhere that doesn’t have some kind of private-sector relationship. “We have to take a critical look at whether or not it is the role of the schools to train students for the workplace,” says Shaker.

When a school enters a relationship with a private entity, “the school effectively becomes the PR arm of the company,” argues Shaker. “And it’s in the school’s best interest to keep the company happy.”

“I think we have to recognize how relying on individual or corporate sources of money for education funding fundamentally changes the school, and who it serves.”

Tired teachers and cash-strapped school boards are fertile ground for corporations who are only too happy to provide classroom-ready materials and even curriculum advice, agrees Larry Booi, president of the Alberta Teachers Association.

“It seems to me that we are beginning to turn our schools into marketing devices for corporations . . . and that seems to me to violate a principle that you do not turn your schoolkids into a captive market for a corporation,” he says.

A few years ago, says Booi, a B.C. company offered to provide schools in Alberta with an “environmentally” themed forestry curriculum, which included supportive words for the practice of clear cutting. “They said clear cutting was good because it made spaces for the little animals,” he recalls with a chuckle.

Another company approached an Edmonton elementary school, offering to make a contribution every time a student’s parent bought a cellphone. More commonly, schools sign exclusive access contracts with large soft drink firms in exchange for branded items like electronic scoreboards.

“Some contributions are really good,” observes Booi. “Others raise a lot of concerns.”

The ATA believes that businesses could best profit from having educated, adaptable citizens being taught in a well-funded public education system. But recognizing that partnerships will continue to flourish, it has adopted long-range guidelines and ethical standards for business involvement in schools, which include making schools advertising-free zones and ensuring commercial enterprises do not “exploit students as a captive market.”

Booi cites a couple of examples where corporations have made a positive impact on the education system:

* CAREERS: The Next Generation. A consortium of high-powered Alberta companies led by Syncrude Canada, which is addressing both youth employability and the province’s looming skills shortage by encouraging young people to consider entering apprenticeship programs. (www.nextgen.org/)

* TELUS2Learn: The Learning Connection professional development project introduces cutting-edge information and learning technologies to teachers, who then share the information with their peers and students. (www.2learn.ca/) “In the end, the kids benefit because you have a more computer-literate society,” says Booi. “It operates at arm’s length and it’s long term, and clearly not exploiting kids.”

At least one school partnership has helped an Edmonton school acquire leading-edge Internet technology. J. Percy Page high school’s four-year relationship with SHAW Communications has provided the school with broadband high-speed access.

“Four years ago, Percy Page had no meaningful technology. They are now, without question, one of the leading schools in North America from a technology point of view,” says Alex Park, vice-president of programming and education services for Calgary-based SHAW.

SHAW is active in a number of education-related areas. It funds the Alberta Regional Consortium, which provides professional development for teachers in the area of technology through SHAW “Summer Institutes,” and is a founding member of the Ottawa-based Media Awareness Network, which helps support media education in schools.

Today, kids at J. Percy Page can dissect frogs online in real-time, rather than using the traditional squishy method. And with the company’s help, they’re linked to a national fibreoptic network of universities across Canada which specialize in research and development.

The school recently organized a broadband video conference with students in Taber and the Toronto school system to discuss safe and caring schools, and linked up with schools abroad to talk about the global water shortage.

School partnerships are “good business” for the company, Park adds. “It really does build loyalty between our company and what we think is a very important segment of our customer base – students, parents and teachers.”

“I think in the past, maybe educators felt there weren’t enough winds in it for the education system. But I think they’re beginning to realize that if the partnership is sound, and everyone is really clear what the expectations are and agree on them, it can actually be a real benefit.”

Balance is the key to effective partnerships, agrees Alison Taylor, assistant professor in the department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta. Taylor says equity, democratic participation and two-way learning should be included among the goals of corporate participation in schools.

“We want to make sure all the voices are heard,” she says, noting that while school boards, teachers and businesses may be represented on partnership committees, the voices of the company’s employees – the ones often on the front lines of school-business interaction – are often overlooked.

Taylor would also like to see the provincial government play a stronger co-ordinating role in school partnerships to ensure equal access to corporate resources within and among rural and urban school districts.

Calgary’s public system has led the country in education-business partnerships. There are about 150 partnerships in place for the system’s 220 schools, with 110 individual school-to-business agreements and a wide variety of business involvement. These include an Exxon Mobile-funded Fuel For School breakfast program and the Chevron Open Minds school program, which allows students and teachers to relocate their classrooms for one week each year to “real world” environments like the zoo and Glenbow Museum.

Full-time partnerships co-ordinator Derald Fretts seeks out new opportunities for the schools, while a partnership steering committee comprised of representatives from the school board, the city, post-secondary institutions and the business community provides advice on various issues.

“Some people think when they hear corporation and education used in the same sentence that somehow there’s a connotation of compromise,” says Calgary Board of Education spokesperson Dave Pommer. “But I think the organizations that we are involved with prove how wrong that perception is.”

Adds Fretts: “The primary focus for partnerships is always on the students.” Former Calgary high school principal Linda Lucas, now an education specialist with Xerox Canada Ltd., says businesses win because partnerships allow them to showcase their corporate citizenship.

But it’s a very fine line, she adds. “You have to come in as a true partner, not in a self-serving fashion,” says Lucas, who sits on the public board’s partnership committee. “You have to be very careful about ethical issues. If people have a sense that partners are there to build a market share, as opposed to really being a contributor, there are checks and balances in place.”

The separate school board in Calgary takes a less aggressive approach in courting corporate suitors, and currently has about 15 partnerships out of 88 schools. Actively hunting for partnerships “is not our thing,” says partnerships co-ordinator Jerry Farwell. He adds that if a business approaches the board with an idea, “I’ll do everything to accommodate them and make sure it’s going to be a fit.”

“There are some pitfalls, and some benefits,” he says. “Is it going to make a difference in learning? That’s what it’s all about.”

Farwell praises the relationship between Father Lacombe high school and PanCanadian Petroleum as an ideal example (www.fatherlacombe.calgary.ab.ca/partnership.htm) of how partnerships can work. The company offers job skills training, summer employment for students and other opportunities for career exploration. Students and staff also collaborate on community service projects and Catholic charity programs.

As well as setting their own standards, many school boards and businesses in Alberta follow ethical guidelines and operating principles for business-education partnerships developed by the Conference Board of Canada (www. conferenceboard.ca/nbec/).

These include:
* Enhancing the quality and relevance of education for learners.
* Identifying clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all partners.
* Allocating resources to complement, and not replace, public funding for education.

The Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation has an ongoing relationship with the Conference Board, says Clovechok, which supports the foundation’s efforts in providing educational opportunities for students through business connections.

More businesses are now opting for system-wide partnerships than single school-based relationships, says Clovechok. Companies want to engage more of their own employees, and have a wider and more flexible reach in dealing with issues like mentorship, supplying needed equipment to schools and youth employability.

The ultimate goal of business-education partnerships, adds Clovechok, is to produce a well-rounded young person who is going to be successful in society.

“As a business community,” he says, “we can’t expect the educational world to do that by themselves.”