This House Has Room
Written by Terry Kelly for Jefter Publishing – SOCAN
This house has room for every child
All abilities welcome
Love and learning wrap around their lives
They will find the direction
Bursting with pride, they’ll share their gifts with the world
This house has room for every child
Now is the time
We’ll do things differently
Each Alberta child,
Will be treated equally
We are the ones,
We will see this is done
We’re making history now
This house has room for every child
All abilities welcome
Love and learning wrap around their lives
They will find the direction
Bursting with pride, they’ll share their gifts with the world
This house has room for every child
I am a child.
I have many faces you see.
But I’m one in a million,
For my teachers and family
I count on you
To be firm, fair, and true.
My challenge grows smaller
Doing things that I can do.
This house has room for every child
All abilities welcome
Love and learning wrap around our lives
We will find the direction
Bursting with pride, we’ll share our gifts with the world
This house has room for every child
This house has room for every child
All abilities welcome
Love and learning wrap around our lives
We will find the direction
Bursting with pride, we’ll share our gifts with the world
This house has room
This house has room
This house has room,
This house has room,
This house has room for every child.
Special Education Initiative in Alberta
Terry was pleased to write and record a new composition, “This House Has Room”, in support of the Setting the Direction for Special Education in Alberta initiative. The song opened and closed the June 8 & 9/09 Minister’s Forum – in Edmonton, Alberta at the Shaw Conference Centre. Edmonton’s Meridian Heights Select Voice Choir accompanied the piece as part of the closing.
Setting the Direction is an important project to create a new framework to ensure Alberta students with special education needs get the supports they need to be successful.
Phase 1 of the project in November and December 2008, featured province-wide consultations on the vision and principles that should govern Alberta’s special education programming and delivery. Public forums were conducted in 10 Alberta communities to hear from individuals and groups through online and paper submissions.
Phase 1 consultation involved input from approximately 3,500 Albertans who represent the views of parents and guardians, teachers, school administrators, school authority staff, school board trustees, teacher assistants, community support organizations and health care professionals.
Phase 2 of Setting the Direction, featured province-wide consultations to affirm the vision and principles that should govern Alberta’s special education programming and delivery and provided an overview of five building blocks that could herald positive and important change (high expectations for all students, using strengths and abilities to drive programming, building capacity for staff and the learning team, collaborating for learner success and accessing learning resources and technologies for the 21st Century)
Phase 2 consultation involved input from approximately 6,000 Albertans who represent the views of parents and guardians, elders, teachers, school administrators, school authority staff, school board trustees, post-secondary representatives, students, teacher assistants, community support organizations and health care professionals.
During Phase 3 (the Minister’s Forum June 8 & 9), phase 1 and 2 input was synthesized to inform the Steering Committee’s proposed Framework. Forum participants had the opportunity to hear from experts in the special education field and ask questions and comment on the proposed framework.
Involvement by First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) people in both the on-line and the community consultation process was limited; therefore the Setting the Direction Steering Committee and the Project Team consulted with FNMI staff within various Ministries on the location and format of the dialogue, and five additional FNMI-specific community sessions were held across Alberta including: Lethbridge, Calgary, St. Paul, Edmonton, and High Prairie.
From there, the project steering committee will make final recommendations to the Minister of Education. If adopted, the framework is scheduled for implementation in September 2010.