Calgary School District No. 19 or the Calgary Board of Education is the public school board in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As a public system, the CBE is required to accept any students who meet age and residency requirements, regardless of religion. It was founded in 1885 as the Calgary Protestant Public School District No. 19.
Size
In terms of student population and school count, the CBE is the largest school board in Alberta, and over twice the size of the other major school district board in Calgary, the Calgary Catholic School District, which teaches mainly, but not exclusively, Catholic students. The other two districts based in the city, both Francophone, are a fraction of the size of the CBE with only a handful of schools each. In land area, the CBE is the smallest of the four Calgary districts, as its territory is limited to municipal limits of Calgary. As the city limits have expanded, the CBE boundary has remained in sync. All CBE land overlaps the other three districts. The CBE operates 226 schools in grades K-12. Non-adult student enrollment was 111,518, there is an additional enrollment of 2,982 for continuing education which is CBE-Learn and Chinook Learning. A total Enrollment of 114,472 in Sept 2014. The operating budget was $1.3 billion for the 2015/16 fiscal year.
Governance
A group of seven elected trustees govern the CBE. Each trustee represents two wards in the city. They are elected every four years, in the regular municipal election. In the election, Calgary voters can only vote for a trustee to one of the two main school boards. The last election was in October 2013. The public and Catholic systems operate independently of each other, and are both under the direct authority of the provincial government of Alberta. Long serving Trustee and Chair of the Board, Pat Cochrane declined to run in the 2013 municipal elections. Cochrane was first elected in 1999 and has devoted much effort and time to the causes of Public Education. Fellow trustee George Lane was defeated by a wide margin in Wards 6 & 7.
Special programs
The CBE operates a number of special programs, usually, but not always operated out of regular schools. The CBE operates an adult and continuing education program through . It offers , and adult programs. The Louise Dean Centre is a school specifically designed for female students that become pregnant before completing high school. It provides daycare for the children, flexible schedules for the students, and special counseling. The CBE's Gifted and Talented Education program assists qualified students with more advanced instruction. GATE compacts and accelerates the typical curriculum. It also provides extra experts and mentors. Currently, nine CBE schools offer the GATE program. In 2003, the CBE opened the board's only all-female school, Alice Jamieson Girls' Academy. In the same year, over the board's objections, the Calgary Girls' Schoolpublic charter school was also opened; but as a charter school, CGS is run independently of the CBE. Both schools teach grades 4-9, and are founded on the premise that females learn differently from boys, and will under-perform for social reasons when in the presence of male peers. In 2011, the CBE opened the board's first all-male alternative program, based in the Sir James Lougheed School. The program teaches grades K-5, and similar to the all-girls schools - the program is founded on the premise that boys learn differently from girls, and they may behave differently in order to meet "macho" expectations, and that they require a more active, hands-on teaching style.
The board also operates a French immersion program in a limited number of schools. The program is geared mainly for English-speaking families who wish their children to become fully fluent in French. It offers early and late adoption programs. Up until 2000, the CBE also provided French instruction to children from French families. When the Greater Southern Francophone School Board was formed in 2000, the CBE relinquished its authority over such schools, and handed over Ecole Queen's Park to the Francophone board.
Schools
Senior high schools
In Alberta, a senior high school teaches grades 10-12. However, some may not teach all three grades. Also, some are combined with junior high schools, which teach grades 7-9. The following is a list of senior high schoolsoperated by the CBE as of 2005, taken from the . The board divides the city into five areas. The CBE, in 2010, launched the CBE Chief Superintendent's Student Advisory Council - a group of high school students with student representation from each of the CBE's high school programs. They meet regularly with the CBE's Chief Superintendent, David Stevenson, to discuss issues in the system and propose solutions.
