Kathleen Finnigan appointed new Superintendent of Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools

From Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools

Red Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools is delighted to announce the appointment of Mrs. Kathleen Finnigan as the division’s new Superintendent of Schools.

“Over the past four months, the Board of Trustees has been conducting a nationwide search for a new Superintendent of Schools. A key component of the process involved reaching out to key stakeholders to gather their thoughts and opinions regarding the new superintendent,” said Kim Pasula, Board Chair at Red Deer Regional Schools.

“The input received from the consultation, that involved engagement with all staff and parents and guardians in the Division, as well as key stakeholders from our broader community, was central to the recruitment and selection process.”
Finnigan has a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta, a Master of Education from San Diego State University and is currently working on a Doctorate of Education specializing in K-12 education leadership through the University of Calgary.

Finnigan grew up and graduated in Delburne, a small town east of Red Deer. She comes from a large farming family in which she is one of six girls along with one brother. Finnigan values community. She was taught the importance of community from her parents who were role models of servant leadership with their work in Delburne, Central Alberta and on the provincial scene. Finnigan believes in the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child” and is looking forward to working in a team to enhance the Red Deer Catholic community whereby students will continue to be the center of all decisions. Finnigan and her husband, Terry, have four boys all educated in Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools.

Finnigan has 34 years of experience as a professional Catholic educator within the division in the roles as teacher, counsellor, school administrator and senior administrator. She has been part of five different school communities in Red Deer: St. Thomas Aquinas Middle School, Maryview School, Holy Family School, St. Martin de Porres School and St. Patrick’s Community School. Finnigan’s first principalship was at St. Martin’s where she worked in a team with a variety of stakeholders to develop the first fine arts school in Central Alberta.

For the past nine years, she has been a member of a senior leadership team holding the positions of Associate Superintendent of Inclusive Learning, Associate Superintendent of Personnel and Acting Superintendent of Schools. Finnigan will continue to foster gospel centred school communities of hope within our division through her connections with staff and stakeholders. She is an active member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church as proclaimer, eucharistic minister and children’s liturgy teacher.

Over the years, she has won many awards including Women of Excellence for Central Alberta (2016), Canada’s Outstanding Principal (2010), Alberta’s Excellence in Teaching Semi-Finalist (2009), Leadership Award from the Council of School Administrators (2001) and Health and Physical Education Award through the HPEC Council (1989).

At today’s Board Meeting, the Board of Trustees will vote on a motion to seek the approval of the Minister of Education to appoint Finnigan as Superintendent of Schools. As per the Education Act, the Minister of Education approves all Superintendent hires and contracts.

The employment of the former Superintendent was concluded by the Board of Trustees in February 2020 and at that time Finnigan was appointed Acting Superintendent of Schools. Since then, she has navigated the division through the COVID-19 pandemic (school closures, at-home learning and school re-entry of in-person learning) and the new funding model from Alberta Education.

“I am blessed to have been appointed Superintendent at Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools; a school division known for exemplary staff and school administrators working together to ensure that Christ is known to students while aspiring to excellence. Alongside the Board of Trustees and staff we will continue to foster gospel centred communities of hope through communication, collaboration, and innovation as we lead our school communities together,” said Superintendent, Kathleen Finnigan at Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools.

“Kathleen was chosen in a highly competitive selection process from a strong field of candidates. She is a highly impressive talent known for her collaborative leadership style that will serve her and our entire staff well in advancing the mission of Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools to make Christ known to children,” said Pasula.

Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools serves over 10,360 students in 20 schools in Red Deer, Blackfalds, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds, as well as an at-home learning program. It also supports the learning of over 1095 students in a Traditional Home Education Program. The Division is committed to serving children and parents with a complete offering of learning opportunities delivered within the context of Catholic teachings and within the means of the Division.

Related Topics:#KathleenFinnigan #RedDeerCatholicRegionalSchools #Superintendent feature RDCRS

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Judge upholds sanctions against Red Deer Catholic school trustee who opposed LGBT agenda

Published on November 18, 2024

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

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.

Education

‘Grade inflation’ gives students false sense of their academic abilities

Published on November 18, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

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.