Calgary Girls' School


Calgary Girls Charter School is an all-female public charter school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It currently teaches grades 4-9.
Established in 2003, the school operates at two sites. Grades 4-5 are located at the Bel Aire campus, and students in grades 6-9 are located at the Lakeview campus. Students at CGCS are required to wear a uniform.
Calgary Girls Charter School is renowned for its "Go Girls" curriculum in which girls talk about image, bullying and the amount of pressure that is on girls.
The CGCS is administered by the Calgary Girls' School Society, a non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to administering the school. As one of 13 charter schools in Alberta, CGCS operates with its own board of directors, and is accountable directly to the Minister of Education. As a public charter school, it receives the same provincial funding per student of any public school. With the public funding comes the obligation to accept any female student that it is able to accommodate, without charging tuition. Like any public Alberta school, it is allowed to charge fees, but they are not tied to the right of admission.

Opposition

The Calgary Board of Education and its main union are generally opposed to the idea of charter schools. Organizers of the CGCS initially applied to get the same school run under the authority of the CBE. However certain policies of the CGCS compelled the CBE to reject them. For instance, one CGS policy is to give parents a more significant role in evaluating teachers.

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