Education
Celebrating BMO’s community investment in RDC
From Red Deer College
BMO Financial Group’s support honoured at unveiling event
Red Deer, January 21, 2019 – At an event in the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre/Centre des Jeux du Canada Gary W. Harris this morning, Red Deer College proudly unveiled the BMO Financial Group Wellness Studio.
In recognition of their $300,000 contribution toward RDC’s Shaping Our Future campaign, the loft-like space above the south end of Builders’ Hall in RDC’s newest facility has been named for the next five years.
This stunning space is a vital component of the Collicutt Performance Fitness Zone, and is used for fitness classes, yoga and meditation. The BMO Financial Group Wellness Studio’s floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the NOVA Chemicals Waskasoo Creek Nature Walk on the south end, and Builders’ Hall to the north. This bright, quiet space contributes to the building’s holistic approach toward wellness by providing an indoor fitness space that connects users to the natural landscape beyond its walls, supporting an individual’s spiritual, environmental and physical wellness.
BMO Financial Group is a committed community partner, and has supported RDC as a proud donor and sponsor in the past and with other initiatives. Their most recent contribution to Red Deer College and the Shaping Our Future campaign is an investment in the health and wellness of RDC students as well as the community members who use the College’s newest facility.
For Red Deer College, this community investment reinforces the support of industry and local businesses for the role that RDC plays in the region.
“We’re grateful, and proud to acknowledge, the strong support that BMO Financial Group has provided to Red Deer College, to support our students and community today and in the future,” says Joel Ward, RDC President & CEO. “We have a shared vision for our region, as community leaders who recognize that we have the power to shape the future of our region, our province and our communities by investing in the total wellness of our citizens.”
The Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre, which is perhaps the most recognizable result of the Shaping Our Future campaign, is only one component of the work RDC has been able to accomplish with the support of community partners like BMO Financial Group.
The College has increased its footprint by nearly a third, with new infrastructure projects including an Alternative Energy Lab and New Residence. RDC has also developed new programs and enhanced existing programs that prepare graduates for success within new and emerging careers that support central Alberta businesses in a diverse and changing economy. All of this will ensure RDC can best continue to serve our learners and communities as we become a comprehensive regional teaching university.
About RDC: For 55 years, RDC has been proudly serving its learners and communities. The College continues to grow programs, facilities and opportunities as it transitions to become a comprehensive regional teaching university during the next three to five years. This year, RDC will add seven new programs to more than 100 established programs (including full degrees, certificates, diplomas and skilled trades programs). RDC educates 7,500 full-and part-time credit students and more than 38,000 youth and adult learners in the School of Continuing Education each year. The College is expanding its teaching, learning, athletic and living spaces with the additions of the state-of-the-art Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre/Centre des Jeux du Canada Gary W. Harris, Alternative Energy Lab and construction of a new Residence which all enhance RDC’s Alternative Energy Initiative. Main campus is strategically situated on 290 acres of Alberta’s natural landscape along Queen Elizabeth II Highway. RDC is also proud to serve its Donald School of Business students housed at a downtown campus, located in the Millennium Centre, in addition to housing teaching and learning space at the Welikoklad Event Centre.
From LifeSiteNews
Monique LaGrange was ousted last December from the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools’ board for comparing the LGBT agenda targeting children to brainwashing.
A Canadian judge ruled that a school board was justified to place harsh sanctions on a Catholic school trustee forced out of her position because she opposed extreme gender ideology and refused to undergo LGBT “sensitivity” training.
Justice Cheryl Arcand-Kootenay of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta ruled Thursday that the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) Board’s sanctions placed against former trustee Monique LaGrange will stand.
LaGrange had vowed to fight the school board in court, and it remains to be seen if she can take any further actions after the decision by Judge Arcand-Kootenay.
The judge ruled that the RDCRS’s policies in place for all trustees, which the board contended were breached, were “logical, thorough, and grounded in the facts that were before the Board at the time of their deliberations.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, the RDCRS board voted 3-1 last December to disqualify LaGrange after she compared the LGBT agenda targeting kids with that of “brainwashing” Nazi propaganda. As a result of being voted out, LaGrange later resigned from her position.
The former school board trustee initially came under fire in September 2023 when she posted an image showing kids in Nazi Germany waving swastika flags during a parade to social media, with the bottom of the post showing an image of kids waving LGBT “Pride” flags along with the text: “Brainwashing is brainwashing.”
After her post went viral, calls for her to step down grew from leftist Alberta politicians and others. This culminated in her removal as director of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association (ACSTA).
In September 2023, the RDCRS passed a motion to mandate that LaGrange undergo “LGBTQ+” and holocaust “sensitivity” training for her social media post.
LaGrange, however, refused to apologize for the meme or undergo “sensitivity” training.
She had argued that the RDCRS had no right to issue sanctions against her because they were not based on the Education Act or code of conduct. Arcand-Kootenay did not agree with her, saying code of conduct violations allow for multiple sanctions to be placed against those who violate them.
From the Fraser Institute
The average entrance grade at the University of British Columbia is now 87 per cent, up from 70 per cent only 20 years ago. While this is partly because the supply of available university spots has not kept pace with growing demand, it’s also likely that some B.C. high schools are inflating their students’ grades.
Suppose you’re scheduled for major heart surgery. Shortly before your surgery begins, you check into your surgeon’s background and are pleased to discover your surgeon had a 100 per cent average throughout medical school. But then you learn that every student at the same medical school received 100 per cent in their courses, too. Now you probably don’t feel quite as confident in your surgeon.
This is the ugly reality of “grade inflation” where the achievements of everyone, including the most outstanding students, are thrown into question. Fortunately, grade inflation is (currently) rare in medical schools. But in high schools, it’s a growing problem.
In fact, grade inflation is so prevalent in Ontario high schools that the University of Waterloo’s undergraduate engineering program uses an adjustment factor when evaluating student applications—for example, Waterloo might consider a 95 per cent average from one school the equivalent of an 85 per cent average from another school.
Grade inflation is a problem in other provinces as well. The average entrance grade at the University of British Columbia is now 87 per cent, up from 70 per cent only 20 years ago. While this is partly because the supply of available university spots has not kept pace with growing demand, it’s also likely that some B.C. high schools are inflating their students’ grades.
Sadly, grade inflation is so rampant these days that some school administrators don’t even try to hide it. For example, earlier this year all students at St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School in Aurora, Ontario, received perfect marks on their midterm exams in two biology courses and one business course—not because these students had mastered these subjects but because the York Catholic District School Board had been unable to find a permanent teacher at this school.
The fact that a school board would use grade inflation to compensate for inadequate instruction in high school tells us everything we need to know about the abysmal academic standards in many schools across Canada.
And make no mistake, student academic performance is declining. According to results from the Programme for International Assessment (PISA), math scores across Canada declined from 532 points in 2003 to 497 points in 2022 (PISA equates 20 points to one grade level). In other words, Canadian students are nearly two years behind on their math skills then they were 20 years ago. While their high school marks are going up, their actual performance is going down.
And that’s the rub—far from correcting a problem, grade inflation makes the problem much worse. Students with inflated grades get a false sense of their academic abilities—then experience a rude shock when they discover they aren’t prepared for post-secondary education. (According to research by economists Ross Finnie and Felice Martinello, students with the highest high school averages usually experience the largest drop in grades in university). Consequently, many end up dropping out.
Grade inflation even hurts students who go on to be academically successful because they suffer the indignity of having their legitimate achievements thrown into doubt by the inflated grades of other students. If we want marks to have meaning, we must end the practise of grade inflation. We do our students no favours when we give them marks they don’t really deserve.
Just as our confidence in a surgeon would go down if we found out that every student from the same medical school had a 100 per cent average, so we should also question the value of diplomas from high schools where grade inflation is rampant.
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