By Al Bieber on October 5, 2021.

Dan Leis

LETHBRIDGE HERALD[email protected]

He has spent over 35 years teaching and now Dan Leis wants to give back to the community as the administrator of the Lethbridge School Division.
A newcomer to Lethbridge, who, along with his wife, retired to the city three years ago, Leis knows he lacks notoriety here.
But the Medicine Hat native, who spent 26 years teaching and coaching sports at Hinton, is familiar with the education system having worked in four different school divisions during his career.
“I run to give back to the community and give back to Alberta,” said Leis, whose wife was born in southern Alberta.
Its slogan is “It’s all about the kids,” and Grandpa knows all about them after teaching grades 1 through 12 in his long career while coaching sports like basketball, badminton, golf and rugby.
His first priority, if elected, will be to ensure that support is provided to everyone in the school system, from students to staff who have suffered the impacts of COVID-19.
“He’s number 1 as far as I’m concerned,” Leis said recently, speaking of the social, educational, psychological and behavioral issues that have affected people since the pandemic.
“We need the services in place to deal with this. “
Leis also believes administrators have an obligation to listen to everyone about education, from parents to teachers to the general public.
“Everyone is involved,” said Leis, adding that his voice will be different due to the fact that he hasn’t lived here for long and the varied experiences and knowledge he can bring to the board of administration.
Leis says the proposed new curriculum “must go.” We must stop and we must do it again. He says different people need to be involved in developing a new curriculum that will preferably address the diversity of Albertans and give a voice to Indigenous and Francophone populations. He says he also needs to be age-appropriate.
“There are a lot of loopholes and we have to start over,” said Leis, who called for a moratorium on the program proposed by the UCP.
Leis also wants funding for school divisions to increase, saying that with inflation, funding could decrease.
He also suggests that public transit be used to transport students to high schools if those routes are on school routes. He said this approach to student transportation is being used successfully in parts of Edmonton and believes it could be tested here.
As long as COVID is an issue, it supports whatever needs to be done to keep students and school staff safe.
“Everything revolves around children and we want children to be in school. “
Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter.

To follow @albeebHerald on Twitter