Historical Overview
The “seeds” for GrACE began within Catholic education communities and through conversations. With the encouragement of the Alberta Bishops, on December 12, 2017 a small working group representing ACSTA and CCSSA was tasked with creating a proposal for an advocacy group loosely based on Ontario’s FACE (Friends and Advocates for Catholic Education). The goal at that time was to establish a partnership that would “weave together the voices of these parties with a common vision to engage our stakeholders in messaging and education specifically designed to create and share the value and necessity of Catholic education”.
Through the working group’s planning process, a covenant was created and a “job description” for a director was developed. The covenant was shared with each of the three partners and over the course of that year was accepted and approved by the Alberta Bishops, Council for Catholic School Superintendents and Alberta Catholic Schools Trustees’ Association. In July 2018 a director was hired. In October 2018 a board was established consisting of 2 representatives from each of the partner boards and the name: Grateful Advocates for Catholic Education (GrACE) was agreed upon.
GrACE was officially launched on Catholic Education Sunday, November 2018.