There were some tough topics at the Alberta School Council Conference, including the province's LGBTQ guidelines and a new sex education curriculum. Vice Chair of the Foothills School Board Michael Pollard says he was impressed with Education Minister David Eggen's down to earth approach to difficult questions.

"A lot of the questions were on fairly sort of hot topic issues, and he sort of went in actually completely unscripted and was very, very open to people's questions and stayed quite a long time answering those questions. It was a very open-face of the government."

He says each of the 61 school divisions had to submit their policies for LGBTQ guidelines by the end of last month, and the Foothills School Division leaned on the idea that schools should be protected and safe for all students.

"Our division has sort of taken the point of view that there are already a lot of protections in the Canadian Charter of Rights, the Alberta Charter of Rights, and the School Act. There are a lot of provisions that protect the rights of minorities of any kind."

Pollard says the minister was clear the rights of religious groups will be protected when it comes to a new provincial sex education curriculum.

"He affirmed, and I agree, that parents should have the right to opt-out becuase there's a lot of different views on sex education and a lot of religious groups have different views about it. And I think we should protect those people's rights as well."

Pollard says the Minister apologized to parents for way the LGBTQ guidelines were initially handled, and affirmed parent's rights to always have the first choice in their child's education.