For many Albertans, the relationship between school boards and the provincial government is hazy and unclear. This is certainly understandable; the letter of the law is complicated enough, but the spirit of the law brings even more subtlety and intricacy to the matter. School boards raise many eyebrows for Albertans. Are they extensions of the provincial government or autonomous forms of local government? Are they ultimately responsible to the Minister of Education or the communities that elect them? The answers to these questions are decidedly complex, but the first step to unraveling them almost always begins with the story of Alberta’s first public school board.

In 1881, when our first school board was formed, Alberta had not yet been carved from the vast Northwest Territories. It was not yet a province of its own. There was no elected assembly for its residents and its affairs were governed entirely by the Lieutenant-Governor and his appointed Territorial Council. There were no laws providing for local government, there were no laws providing for property taxation, and there were certainly no laws establishing a territorial education system. So, on a cold evening in January, the pioneering citizens of Edmonton gathered informally in their small frontier town’s tavern. They wanted a public school that belonged to their community, and they were ready to take it upon themselves to achieve this goal. They elected a group of individuals from amongst themselves and entrusted them with the tasks of collecting the necessary funds, building a schoolhouse, and hiring a teacher. This first group of trustees performed admirably. They petitioned every landowner for a ‘subscription’ (the first form of property tax in what is now Alberta), and as far as we know, there was not a single holdout. Everyone contributed to this important community project and three months later, a school was built, a teacher was hired, and the children of Edmonton started classes in the province’s first public classroom. Similar school boards began to appear across the Territories, prompting the Territorial Council to write the first the school law and the first local government law in 1884.

The purpose of this story is to show that originally, school boards grew from local communities that took responsibility for the education of their children and the outcome of their collective future. They did not wait for the Territorial Council to lay the legislative groundwork. They did not wait for school laws, local government laws, or property tax laws. They did not wait for permission from their government to address their common hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They agreed on the value of a public school that belonged to their community, and together they built one. They did this long before the province of Alberta even existed as a political entity. In fact, these school boards pre-date the province by twenty-four years. Therefore, it is hard to argue that school boards are, as some have said, “the children” or “creatures” of the provincial government. In many ways, it could be argued that our provincial government is, in fact, the child of school boards. Our early communities’ first experiences with democratic government were through school boards, and the desire this created at the grassroots level for provincehood cannot be dismissed.

Of course, when the Province of Alberta was finally created in 1905, the letter of law became more complicated for school boards. Section 93 of the Constitution Act (1867) – formerly the British North America Act (1867) – lists those matters about which the provinces make laws. These include local government and education. It should be pointed out that the Constitution does not require our provincial governments to make such laws. It only states that if any government is going to do so, it must be a provincial government. So, with the formation of the Province of Alberta in 1905, a new relationship between school boards and government was formed – on paper at least.

While the letter of the law is certainly important, the Constitution of Canada is much more than what is written on paper in the Constitution Act. Aside from the numerous other acts that form our constitution, there is also the spirit of the law and constitutional convention that has developed and perpetuated itself for centuries in both Canada and the United Kingdom. For example, strictly speaking, the Canadian court system is not a separate order of government, and the Constitution Act is silent on the relationship between the courts and the government. But, the larger Constitution is quite clear. Both politicians and citizens know that the neither the Prime Minister (an office not once mentioned in the Constitution Act, by the way), nor cabinet, nor the House of Commons can interfere with the decisions of the courts. Judicial independence is not written anywhere in our Constitution. Instead, it is based on history, precedents, conventions, and the sense that citizens would reject the legitimacy of any government that interferes with the courts.

The case with municipal forms of government, like school boards, is quite similar. It is quite true that our provincial government has the statutory, letter-of-the-law power to keep school boards subservient like they are now, or to disband them entirely. The same holds true for municipalities. The Government of Alberta could disband the City of Calgary and run it entirely from their offices in Edmonton if they were so inclined. On paper, municipal forms of government answer to the government.

Of course, the reality is quite different. Like the court system, municipalities and school boards are important elements in our society’s whole fabric of government. They might not be acknowledged in the fine print, but they are important nonetheless. And just like the courts, municipalities and school boards argue that their independence and autonomy is, to some degree, protected by the spirit of the law. That is because these institutions have deep roots in our communities. The functions for which they were created in our province’s early history remain important today, and many citizens – perhaps the majority – continue to believe that communities across the province should have the independence, autonomy, and resources they need to do what local people want done locally. Of course, local forms of government cannot do what local people want done locally unless they are primarily accountable to the communities they serve, and not to some distant provincial government. Communities are the ones that elect school boards. Communities are the ones that rely on school boards to educate their children and guarantee their future. Thus, it only makes sense that school boards should ultimately be accountable to their communities first and foremost.

These are important issues to ponder as the School Act is put back onto the public drawing board for the first time in twenty years. Citizens and politicians will have a lot to discuss. Will local government be empowered to serve local communities, or will their powers be further eroded? Will more centralization in education lead to the same kind experiences in our schools that are present in our hospitals under a government-appointed, province-wide health super-board? The answers to these questions are important, and everyone should do their best to ensure that their responses are heard during the School Act review.