Tense elections in Edmonton

In what might have been one of the most dramatic meetings in Canadian Christian school history, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Edmonton Society for Christian Education (ESCE) began at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4, and didn’t end until nearly 2 a.m. the next morning. When the gym doors opened at 6 p.m., people were already lining up to get in.

Tensions ran high around the election of new Board members; specifically, between conservative members concerned about progressive material in Christian schools and others, many long-time Christian Reformed (CRC) supporters, who believe, as stated in an open letter to members, that “there is room in our school community for diverse opinions and viewpoints.”

When Board Chair Lindsay McDavid called for the new Board member vote, an objection was raised because the ballot had four nominations – Logan Day, Fola Olusoga, Melanie Dreger and Chelsea Voogd – for four Board vacancies. This list of nominees was part of the AGM package sent out on May 21. At least 12 other qualified candidates were not on the ballot. And a fifth spot on the Board had opened up on June 1 when the Treasurer unexpectedly resigned.

ESCE member Larissa Vogan, who had before the meeting tried unsuccessfully to get the Board to amend its ballot with a longer slate of options, brought forward a motion from the floor to address these concerns by adding five candidates: Jonathan Nicolai-deKoning, Peter Buisman, Darlene Eerkes, Rebecca Vandenborn and Kevin Hofstede. Four of those five have ties to Christian Reformed churches; Buisman and Eerkes are both retired Edmonton Christian School principals and Nicolai-deKoning is a CRC pastor and current Director of the Micah Centre at the King’s University. Vogan’s motion passed, and the ballot was revised. Voting options, however, were only the beginning of a long night of motions, objections and counter-objections.

Bureaucratic rollercoaster

The next tense moment came when a group called Stand for Edmonton Christian Schools brought forward roughly 1,000 absentee votes that had been collected before the meeting. The group had, months earlier, encouraged “biblically faithful Christians to help keep Christian schools Christian” (as its tagline states) by joining ESCE and voting in the June AGM for the four candidates that the group endorsed. The number of absentee votes was significant enough to impact election outcomes, given that the ESCE has 3,100 members in total. Unlike some school boards, membership in the ESCE isn’t limited to current parents or alumni; anyone can join.

The June 4 meeting had a record turnout – over 800 people attended in person, so many that overflow space with a livestream feed had to be set up outside the increasingly hot gym. Before the votes could be counted, however, ESCE member Glenn VandenBorn made a motion to invalidate the absentee ballots. He cited an ESCE bylaw prohibiting absentee ballots when substantial changes have been made – which had just happened with the addition of new names and one additional vacancy. This led to disagreement as to whether the changes were “substantial,” which the Board withdrew to discuss privately. At first McDavid ruled that the changes were not substantial, but after her ruling was challenged and voted against, it was overturned. An overwhelming majority of people in the gym voted to invalidate the absentee votes.

It was after midnight by the time election outcomes could be determined, and Nicolai-deKoning, Buisman, Eerkes, Vandenborn and Hofstede were announced as the newest ESCE Board members; no one on the initial list was voted in.

Signs of trouble

Symptoms of disagreement among Christian school supporters in Edmonton were evident long before June’s AGM. Since last September, diverging views had already led to the resignation of three ESCE Board members; one member was removed and the Executive Director took medical leave.

The ‘elephant in the room,’ to quote one ESCE member, is how Edmonton Christian Schools should implement public school Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) policies, even though “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity issues were never mentioned once during the entire six-and-a-half-hour marathon meeting.”

Because Edmonton Christian Schools have, since 1999, been part of the public school system (as Bob Bruinsma wrote about for CC in 2017), they have lower tuition and less independence than other Christian schools in Canada. They’ve also had SOGI Staff Guidelines in place since 2011, which state that “Edmonton Christian Schools are places where God’s love, peace and grace define the nature of community […] in an atmosphere of mutual respect [where] every student is viewed as a child of God possessing God-given gifts and talents” (from ESCE policy 3.13, updated 2021). Do these guidelines help schools “protect the safety of LGBTQ+ students,” as one CRC educator said, or is it a sign they are “being polluted by gender-diversity affirming practices,” which is how Stand for ECS characterizes it? It comes down, perhaps, to two different visions for Christian education in Alberta. On June 4, ballots and bylaws became the placeholders for beliefs.

Stand for ECS began in the summer of 2023. It’s “made up of moms, dads and grandparents concerned about the nature of the spiritual education our children are receiving,” spokesperson Raegan Skauge told CC. In addition to taking down signs like “Safe Space” and “All Genders Are Welcome Here,” Stand for ECS wants the Board to “oppose progressive LGBTQ+ ideologies” and to limit marriage, sexuality and gender ‘activism’ by members that is “incongruent with the infallible Word of God interpreted in accordance with the catechisms and confessions.” Stand for ECS’s website also expresses its concern over an emphasis on Indigenous spirituality, student surveys asking for preferred pronouns, and celebrations during Pride Week.

A parallel group to Stand for ECS called Stand for Calgary Christian Schools has been vocal about trying to stop the “progressive agenda” in Calgary, which led to tension at its AGM in April. An affiliate group to Stand for ECS called Saving Childhood is challenging the outcome of Edmonton’s June meeting by petitioning the Board to recount, and to include the absentee votes. In an email to supporters after the AGM, Stand for ECS said, “We entered the AGM confident that the votes would be counted and a board of faithful trustees would be elected. We did not expect an angry mob to stage an undemocratic takeover.”

A ‘saddening’ experience

Christian schools in Edmonton were started by Dutch immigrants of the Reformed faith in the 1950s. Today, students in Edmonton’s three Christian school campuses come from an estimated 25 denominations and 180 churches.

“It is understandable,” long-time ESCE member Janet Greidanus says, “that it may be difficult to completely agree on some theological issues.” It was, however, “shocking and hurtful to be labeled a ‘progressive radical embracing an un-Christian ideology,’” she says. “The whole experience was saddening.” The Greidanus family, members of WestEnd CRC, sent their six children to West Edmonton Christian School from 1973 to 2000.

Larissa Vogan was one signatory of an open letter expressing concern about how the Board has been functioning. Some of the division could have been avoided with stronger leadership, Vogan believes. Other ECSE members wonder if these battles will jeopardize the future of Edmonton Christian Schools’ incorporation in Edmonton public schools, which could raise tuition and limit access to Christian education for some families.

“We are one body in Christ, and we lost that in this election process,” Vogan says. “We could have done this much better, and in a much more Christ-like fashion, but it turns out we are but humans in a broken world. I believe we need to come to the table and sit across from the divine image of God that our brothers and sisters in Christ mirror, and love them as we are called to, with humility and under the grace each of us was so freely given.”