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131-427: Edmonton Public Schools operates 213 schools. There are a total of 125 elementary schools, 38 elementary/junior high schools, 5 elementary/junior/senior high schools, 26 junior high schools, 4 junior/senior high, 15 senior high schools, and 7 other educational services offered. Approximately 115,000 students attend Edmonton Public Schools and there are over 10,500 full-time staff equivalencies. The proposed operating budget

262-424: A single-winner voting rule. Voters typically mark one candidate as their favorite, and the candidate with the largest number of first-preference marks (a plurality ) is elected, regardless of whether they have over half of all votes (a majority ). It is sometimes called first-past-the-post (FPTP) in reference to gambling on horse races (where bettors would guess which horse they thought would be first past

393-625: A "Parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn't really object to either." However, FPP often results in strategic voting , which has prevented extreme left- and right-wing parties from gaining parliamentary seats , as opposed to proportional representation . This also implies that strategic voting is necessary to keep extremists from gaining seats, which often fails to materialize in practice for multiple reasons. In comparison, many other systems encourage voters to rank other candidates and thereby not (or at least less often to) have to strategically compromise on their first choice at

524-477: A common oral and written language, ASL is not mutually intelligible with either British Sign Language (BSL) or Auslan . All three languages show degrees of borrowing from English, but that alone is not sufficient for cross-language comprehension. It has been found that a relatively high percentage (37–44%) of ASL signs have similar translations in Auslan, which for oral languages would suggest that they belong to

655-427: A contributory factor in the country adopting the apartheid system after the 1948 general election in that country. Leblang and Chan found that a country's electoral system is the most important predictor of a country's involvement in war, according to three different measures: (1) when a country was the first to enter a war; (2) when it joined a multinational coalition in an ongoing war; and (3) how long it stayed in

786-909: A focus on a specific type of arts, athletics, language, faith, culture or teaching philosophy. This includes: Aboriginal education, Cogito, American Sign Language , Hockey Training, Waldorf and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program . This program supports children with mild/moderate and severe disabilities, aged 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 to 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 years. Programming focuses on cognitive, self-help and social skills, speech and language, and motor development. Parents and staff work together to support each child. This program supports children 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 to 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 years of age who are English Language Learners or in need of specialized supports and services. Programming focuses on developing communication and co-operative learning skills, and

917-521: A geographical base, parties that are small UK-wide can still do very well". On the other hand, minor parties that do not concentrate their vote usually end up getting a much lower proportion of seats than votes, as they lose most of the seats they contest and 'waste' most of their votes. The ERS also says that in FPP elections using many separate districts "small parties without a geographical base find it hard to win seats". Make Votes Matter said that in

1048-542: A government without being the largest party. The use of proportional representation (PR) may enable smaller parties to become decisive in the country's legislature and gain leverage they would not otherwise enjoy, although this can be somewhat mitigated by a large enough electoral threshold . They argue that FPP generally reduces this possibility, except where parties have a strong regional basis. A journalist at Haaretz noted that Israel's highly proportional Knesset "affords great power to relatively small parties, forcing

1179-401: A letter or diacritic for every phonemic (distinctive) hand shape, orientation, motion, and position, though it lacks any representation of facial expression, and is better suited for individual words than for extended passages of text. Stokoe used that system for his 1965 A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles . SignWriting , proposed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton ,

1310-431: A majority of seats just requires receiving more than half the vote in more than half the districts—even if the other party receives all the votes cast in the other districts—so just over a quarter of the vote is theoretically enough to win a majority in the legislature. With enough candidates splitting the vote in a district, the total number of votes needed to win can be made arbitrarily small . Under first-past-the-post,

1441-615: A majority of the votes cast in Canada only three times since 1921: in 1940 , 1958 and 1984 . In the United Kingdom, 19 of the 24 general elections since 1922 have produced a single-party majority government. In all but two of them ( 1931 and 1935 ), the leading party did not take a majority of the votes across the UK. In some cases, this can lead to a party receiving the plurality or even majority of total votes yet still failing to gain

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1572-509: A minor party in protest at its policies, since to do so would likely only help the major party's main rival. Rather than curtailing extreme voices, FPP today empowers the (relatively) extreme voices of the Labour and Conservative party memberships." For example, the electoral system of Hungary , a mixed system dominated by FPP have seen Fidesz (right-wing, populist party) win 135 seats in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election and has remained

1703-521: A number of children of deaf adults (CODA) and other hearing individuals. Signs in ASL have a number of phonemic components, such as movement of the face, the torso, and the hands. ASL is not a form of pantomime , although iconicity plays a larger role in ASL than in spoken languages. English loan words are often borrowed through fingerspelling , although ASL grammar is unrelated to that of English. ASL has verbal agreement and aspectual marking and has

1834-474: A plurality of legislative seats. This results in a situation called a majority reversal or electoral inversion . Famous examples of the second-place party (in votes nationally) winning a majority of seats include the elections in Ghana in 2012 , New Zealand in 1978 and 1981 , and the United Kingdom in 1951 . Famous examples of the second placed party (in votes nationally) winning a plurality of seats include

1965-622: A powerful electoral incentive for large parties to target similar segments of voters with similar policies. The effect of this reduces political diversity in a country because the larger parties are incentivized to coalesce around similar policies. The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network describes India's use of FPTP as a "legacy of British colonialism". Duverger's law is an idea in political science which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post methods will lead to two-party systems , given enough time. Economist Jeffrey Sachs explains: The main reason for America's majoritarian character

2096-499: A principle known in political science as Duverger's Law . Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections. However, most countries with first-past-the-post elections have multiparty legislatures (albeit with two parties larger than the others), the United States being the major exception. There is a counter-argument to Duverger's Law, that while on the national level a plurality system may encourage two parties, in

2227-444: A productive system of classifiers , which are used to classify objects and their movement in space. For example, a rabbit running downhill would use a classifier consisting of a bent V classifier handshape with a downhill-directed path; if the rabbit is hopping, the path is executed with a bouncy manner. In general, classifiers are composed of a "classifier handshape" bound to a "movement root". The classifier handshape represents

2358-549: A productive system of forming agglutinative classifiers . Many linguists believe ASL to be a subject–verb–object language. However, there are several alternative proposals to account for ASL word order. ASL emerged as a language in the American School for the Deaf (ASD), founded by Thomas Gallaudet in 1817, which brought together Old French Sign Language , various village sign languages , and home sign systems. ASL

2489-600: A public election in 1840 by his son Rowland for the Adelaide City Council in Australia. STV saw its first national use in Denmark in 1855, and was reinvented several times in the 19th century. American Sign Language American Sign Language ( ASL ) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canada . ASL

2620-517: A second language. First-past-the-post voting Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results First-preference plurality ( FPP ) also known as single-member district plurality ( SMDP )—often shortened simply to plurality —is

2751-652: A signal of age. Additionally, signers who learned American Sign Language as a second language vary in production. For Deaf signers who learned a different sign language before learning American Sign Language, qualities of their native language may show in their ASL production. Some examples of that varied production include fingerspelling towards the body, instead of away from it, and signing certain movement from bottom to top, instead of top to bottom. Hearing people who learn American Sign Language also have noticeable differences in signing production. The most notable production difference of hearing people learning American Sign Language

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2882-493: A significant number of safe seats , where a representative is sheltered from any but the most dramatic change in voting behavior. In the UK, the Electoral Reform Society estimates that more than half the seats can be considered as safe. It has been claimed that members involved in the 2009 expenses scandal were significantly more likely to hold a safe seat. The House of Commons of England originated in

3013-548: A small party may draw votes and seats away from a larger party that it is more similar to, and therefore give an advantage to one it is less similar to. For example, in the 2000 United States presidential election , the left-leaning Ralph Nader drew more votes from the left-leaning Al Gore , resulting in Nader spoiling the election for the Democrats. According to the political pressure group Make Votes Matter , FPTP creates

3144-453: A system based on plurality voting spread over many separate districts is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support gain a disproportionately small share. This is because in doing this they win many seats and do not 'waste' many votes in other areas. As voting patterns are similar in about two-thirds of

3275-582: A tendency for Independentista voters to support Populares candidates. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the Estadistas have the most voters on the island, and is so widely recognised that Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because that fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to

3406-466: A vote could be considered as wasted . FPP wastes fewer votes when it is used in two-party contests. But waste of votes and minority governments are more likely when large groups of voters vote for three, four or more parties as in Canadian elections. Canada uses FPP and only two of the last seven federal Canadian elections ( 2011 and 2015 ) produced single-party majority governments. In none of them did

3537-417: A war after becoming a party to it. When the people are fairly represented in parliament, more of those groups who may object to any potential war have access to the political power necessary to prevent it. In a proportional democracy, war and other major decisions generally requires the consent of the majority. The British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell , and others, have argued that Britain entered

3668-459: A word to convey grammatical information without altering its fundamental meaning or category. For example, adding the suffix "-ship" to the noun "friend" creates the new word "friendship", which has a different meaning than the original word. Inflection, on the other hand, involves modifying a word's form to indicate grammatical features such as tense, number, gender, person, case, and degree of comparison. In American Sign Language (ASL), inflection

3799-479: A young deaf girl Alice Cogswell , traveled to Europe in order to learn deaf pedagogy from European institutions. Ultimately, Gallaudet chose to adopt the methods of the French Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris , and convinced Laurent Clerc , an assistant to the school's founder Charles-Michel de l'Épée , to accompany him back to the United States. Upon his return, Gallaudet founded

3930-426: Is $ 1.296 billion for the 2023–2024 fiscal year. A group of nine elected trustees sits on the board of trustees for Edmonton Public Schools. Each trustee represents one ward in the city. They are elected every four years, in the regular municipal election through First-past-the-post voting . In the election, Edmonton voters can only vote for a trustee to one (not both) of the two main school boards. The last election

4061-507: Is a creole in which LSF is the superstrate language and the native village sign languages are substrate languages. However, more recent research has shown that modern ASL does not share many of the structural features that characterize creole languages. ASL may have begun as a creole and then undergone structural change over time, but it is also possible that it was never a creole-type language. There are modality-specific reasons that signed languages tend towards agglutination , such as

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4192-458: Is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features . Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia . ASL is also widely learned as a second language , serving as a lingua franca . ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL

4323-597: Is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutinative morphology . ASL originated in the early 19th century in the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut , from a situation of language contact . Since then, ASL use has been propagated widely by schools for the deaf and Deaf community organizations. Despite its wide use, no accurate count of ASL users has been taken. Reliable estimates for American ASL users range from 250,000 to 500,000 persons, including

4454-406: Is a prospect of a change in representation, leaving safer areas excluded from participation in an active campaign. Political parties operate by targeting districts, directing their activists and policy proposals toward those areas considered to be marginal, where each additional vote has more value. This feature of FPTP has often been used by its supporters in contrast to proportional systems. In

4585-405: Is a variety of ASL used throughout the United States by and with the deaf-blind . It is particularly common among those with Usher's syndrome . It results in deafness from birth followed by loss of vision later in life; consequently, those with Usher's syndrome often grow up in the Deaf community using ASL, and later transition to TASL. TASL differs from ASL in that signs are produced by touching

4716-449: Is achieved by modifying the sign so that it has a stationary hand position. Verbs may agree with both the subject and the object , and are marked for number and reciprocity. Reciprocity is indicated by using two one-handed signs; for example, the sign SHOOT, made with an L-shaped handshape with inward movement of the thumb, inflects to SHOOT [reciprocal] , articulated by having two L-shaped hands "shooting" at each other. ASL has

4847-561: Is also found between citation forms and forms used by Deaf gay men for words such as "pain" and "protest". The prevalence of residential Deaf schools can account for much of the regional variance of signs and sign productions across the United States. Deaf schools often serve students of the state in which the school resides. That limited access to signers from other regions, combined with the residential quality of Deaf Schools promoted specific use of certain sign variants. Native signers did not have much access to signers from other regions during

4978-492: Is available to children attending their designated school. Children who are four years of age on or before March 1 of that year, may register in Kindergarten for the upcoming school year. Children may attend their designated school or apply to a school or program of choice. Kindergarten is offered half-day in the mornings or afternoons at most elementary schools, and full-day at some elementary schools for children living in

5109-607: Is chasing the cat", uses NOW to mark ASL progressive aspect and shows ASL verbal inflection for the third person ( >IX=3 ). However, glossing is not used to write the language for speakers of ASL. Each sign in ASL is composed of a number of distinctive components, generally referred to as parameters. A sign may use one hand or both. All signs can be described using the five parameters involved in signed languages, which are handshape , movement , palm orientation , location and nonmanual markers . Just as phonemes of sound distinguish meaning in spoken languages, those parameters are

5240-791: Is commonly called Pidgin Signed English (PSE) or 'contact signing', a blend of English structure with ASL vocabulary. Various types of PSE exist, ranging from highly English-influenced PSE (practically relexified English) to PSE which is quite close to ASL lexically and grammatically, but may alter some subtle features of ASL grammar. Fingerspelling may be used more often in PSE than it is normally used in ASL. There have been some constructed sign languages , known as Manually Coded English (MCE), which match English grammar exactly and simply replace spoken words with signs; those systems are not considered to be varieties of ASL. Tactile ASL (TASL)

5371-722: Is difficult because ASL users have never been counted by the American census. The ultimate source for current estimates of the number of ASL users in the United States is a report for the National Census of the Deaf Population (NCDP) by Schein and Delk (1974). Based on a 1972 survey of the NCDP, Schein and Delk provided estimates consistent with a signing population between 250,000 and 500,000. The survey did not distinguish between ASL and other forms of signing; in fact,

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5502-498: Is for children who have diagnosed learning disabilities and a high cognitive ability. It focuses on assisting students who need extra help. This program assists students with mild cognitive disabilities who experience significant academic and social challenges. Programming focuses on literacy, numeracy and skills necessary for responsible independent living and employment. This program assists students with moderate cognitive disabilities. Programming focuses on assisting students to gain

5633-423: Is generally viewed as more innovating than standard English, Black ASL is more conservative than standard ASL, preserving older forms of many signs. Black sign language speakers use more two-handed signs than in mainstream ASL, are less likely to show assimilatory lowering of signs produced on the forehead (e.g. KNOW) and use a wider signing space. Modern Black ASL borrows a number of idioms from AAE; for instance,

5764-409: Is no well-established writing system for ASL, written sign language dates back almost two centuries. The first systematic writing system for a sign language seems to be that of Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian , developed in 1825. However, written sign language remained marginal among the public. In the 1960s, linguist William Stokoe created Stokoe notation specifically for ASL. It is alphabetic, with

5895-517: Is not a phonemic orthography and does not have a one-to-one map from phonological forms to written forms. That assertion has been disputed, and the process for each country to look at the ISWA and create a phonemic/morphemic assignment of features of each sign language was proposed by researchers Msc. Roberto Cesar Reis da Costa and Madson Barreto in a thesis forum on June 23, 2014. The SignWriting community has an open project on Wikimedia Labs to support

6026-422: Is ongoing research into whether ASL has an analog of syllables in spoken language. ASL has a rich system of verbal inflection , which involves both grammatical aspect : how the action of verbs flows in time—and agreement marking. Aspect can be marked by changing the manner of movement of the verb; for example, continuous aspect is marked by incorporating rhythmic, circular movement, while punctual aspect

6157-501: Is only true with regard to high school coursework. Prior to the birth of ASL, sign language had been used by various communities in the United States. In the United States, as elsewhere in the world, hearing families with deaf children have historically employed ad hoc home sign , which often reaches much higher levels of sophistication than gestures used by hearing people in spoken conversation. As early as 1541 at first contact by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado , there were reports that

6288-407: Is related to kingmakers in that the lesser-known candidates may encourage their supporters to rank the other candidates a certain way. Supporters of electoral reform generally see this as a positive development, and claim that alternatives certain to FPP will encourage less negative and more positive campaigning, as candidates will have to appeal to a wider group of people. Opinions are split on whether

6419-743: Is still an open question how similar those sign languages are to the variety of ASL used in America. In addition to the aforementioned West African countries, ASL is reported to be used as a first language in Barbados , Bolivia , Cambodia (alongside Cambodian Sign Language ), the Central African Republic , Chad , China ( Hong Kong ), the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Gabon , Jamaica , Kenya , Madagascar ,

6550-495: Is that a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party , and exit polls indicated that more of them would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%). The election was ultimately determined by the results from Florida , where Bush prevailed over Gore by a margin of only 537 votes (0.009%), which was far exceeded by the 97488 (1.635%) votes cast for Nader in that state. In Puerto Rico , there has been

6681-408: Is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two,

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6812-689: Is the first writing system to gain use among the public and the first writing system for sign languages to be included in the Unicode Standard . SignWriting consists of more than 5000 distinct iconic graphs/glyphs. Currently, it is in use in many schools for the Deaf, particularly in Brazil, and has been used in International Sign forums with speakers and researchers in more than 40 countries, including Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Tunisia, and

6943-436: Is their rhythm and arm posture. Most popularly, there are variants of the signs for English words such as "birthday", "pizza", "Halloween", "early", and "soon", just a sample of the most commonly recognized signs with variants based on regional change. The sign for "school" is commonly varied between black and white signers; the variants used by black signers are sometimes called Black American Sign Language . Social variation

7074-457: Is thought to have originated in the American School for the Deaf (ASD), founded in Hartford, Connecticut , in 1817. Originally known as The American Asylum, At Hartford, For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf And Dumb , the school was founded by the Yale graduate and divinity student Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet . Gallaudet, inspired by his success in demonstrating the learning abilities of

7205-697: The 2017 general election , "the Green Party, Liberal Democrats and UKIP (minor, non-regional parties) received 11% of votes between them, yet they shared just 2% of seats", and in the 2015 general election , "[t]he same three parties received almost a quarter of all the votes cast, yet these parties shared just 1.5% of seats." According to Make Votes Matter, in the 2015 UK general election UKIP came in third in terms of number of votes (3.9 million/12.6%), but gained only one seat in Parliament, resulting in one seat per 3.9 million votes. The Conservatives on

7336-777: The Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains widely spoke a sign language to communicate across vast national and linguistic lines. In the 19th century, a "triangle" of village sign languages developed in New England : one in Martha's Vineyard , Massachusetts; one in Henniker, New Hampshire , and one in Sandy River Valley, Maine . Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), which was particularly important for

7467-680: The Milan Congress made it dominant and effectively banned the use of sign languages at schools in the United States and Europe. However, the efforts of Deaf advocates and educators, more lenient enforcement of the Congress's mandate, and the use of ASL in religious education and proselytism ensured greater use and documentation compared to European sign languages, albeit more influenced by fingerspelled loanwords and borrowed idioms from English as students were societally pressured to achieve fluency in spoken language. Nevertheless, oralism remained

7598-608: The Philippines , Singapore , and Zimbabwe . ASL is also used as a lingua franca throughout the deaf world, widely learned as a second language . Sign production can often vary according to location. Signers from the South tend to sign with more flow and ease. Native signers from New York have been reported as signing comparatively quicker and sharper. Sign production of native Californian signers has also been reported as being fast. Research on that phenomenon often concludes that

7729-465: The phonemes of spoken languages. There has also been a proposal that they are analogous to classes like place and manner of articulation . As in spoken languages, those phonological units can be split into distinctive features . For instance, the handshapes /2/ and /3/ are distinguished by the presence or absence of the feature [± closed thumb], as illustrated to the right. ASL has processes of allophony and phonotactic restrictions. There

7860-434: The 1970s , where the first round selects two major contenders who go on to receive the overwhelming majority of votes. [REDACTED] Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital . The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are: The preferences of each region's voters are: In FPTP, only

7991-414: The 20th century, many countries that previously used FPP have abandoned it in favor of other electoral systems, including the former British colonies of Australia and New Zealand . Most U.S. states still officially retain FPP for most elections. However, the combination of partisan primaries with the two-party system mean the country has effectively used a variation on the two-round system since

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8122-484: The AAE idiom "I feel you" is calqued into Black ASL. ASL is used internationally as a lingua franca , and a number of closely related sign languages derived from ASL are used in many different countries. Even so, there have been varying degrees of divergence from standard ASL in those imported ASL varieties. Bolivian Sign Language is reported to be a dialect of ASL, no more divergent than other acknowledged dialects. On

8253-568: The ASD on April 15, 1817. The largest group of students during the first seven decades of the school were from Martha's Vineyard, and they brought MVSL with them. There were also 44 students from around Henniker, New Hampshire, and 27 from the Sandy River valley in Maine, each of which had their own village sign language. Other students brought knowledge of their own home signs. Laurent Clerc,

8384-582: The American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, whose central location for the first generation of educators in Deaf education to learn American Sign Language allows ASL to be more standardized than its variant. Varieties of ASL are found throughout the world . There is little difficulty in comprehension among the varieties of the United States and Canada. Just as there are accents in speech, there are regional accents in sign. People from

8515-564: The Condorcet and Borda count methods, which were respectively reinvented in the 18th century by the Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda . More serious investigation into electoral systems came in the late 18th century, when several thinkers independently proposed systems of proportional representation to elect legislatures. The single transferable vote in particular was invented in 1819 by Thomas Wright Hill , and first used in

8646-483: The Iraq War primarily because of the political effects of FPP and that proportional representation would have prevented Britain's involvement in the war. To a greater extent than many others, the first-past-the-post method encourages "tactical voting". Voters have an incentive to vote for a candidate who they predict is more likely to win, as opposed to their preferred candidate who may be unlikely to win and for whom

8777-652: The Middle Ages as an assembly representing the gentry of the counties and cities of the Kingdom, each of which elected either one or two members of parliament (MPs) by block plurality voting . Starting in the 19th century, electoral reform advocates pushed to replace these multi-member constituencies with single-member districts. Elections to the Canadian House of Commons have always been conducted with FPP. The United States broke away from British rule in

8908-538: The South sign slower than people in the North—even people from northern and southern Indiana have different styles. Mutual intelligibility among those ASL varieties is high, and the variation is primarily lexical . For example, there are three different words for English about in Canadian ASL; the standard way, and two regional variations (Atlantic and Ontario). Variation may also be phonological , meaning that

9039-615: The Tevie Miller Heritage School is for students with diagnosed speech and language delays, disorders or disabilities. Edmonton Public Schools offers Regular programs, Alternative programs and Special education programs. Special education programs are available at select schools and include programs for students who are academically advanced, and students who have Behaviour Disabilities, Cognitive Disabilities, Diagnosed Learning Disabilities and Academic Delays. There are more than 30 Alternative programs available with

9170-643: The United States. Sutton SignWriting has both a printed and an electronically produced form so that persons can use the system anywhere that oral languages are written (personal letters, newspapers, and media, academic research). The systematic examination of the International Sign Writing Alphabet (ISWA) as an equivalent usage structure to the International Phonetic Alphabet for spoken languages has been proposed. According to some researchers, SignWriting

9301-464: The White House published a response to a petition that gained over 37,000 signatures to officially recognize American Sign Language as a community language and a language of instruction in schools . The response is titled "there shouldn't be any stigma about American Sign Language" and addressed that ASL is a vital language for the Deaf and hard of hearing. Stigmas associated with sign languages and

9432-442: The ability to simultaneously convey information via the face, head, torso, and other body parts. That might override creole characteristics such as the tendency towards isolating morphology . Additionally, Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet may have used an artificially constructed form of manually coded language in instruction rather than true LSF. Although the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia share English as

9563-434: The absence of) of party primaries maybe strengthen or weaken this effect. In general, FPP has no mechanism that would benefit more moderate candidates and many supporters of FPP defend it electing the largest and most unified (even if more polarizing) minority over a more consensual majority supported candidate. Allowing people into parliament who did not finish first in their district was described by David Cameron as creating

9694-453: The alternative vote (better known as instant runoff voting outside the UK) achieves this better than other systems. Supporters and opponents of FPP often argue whether FPP advantages or disadvantages extremist parties. Among single-winner systems, FPP suffers from the center squeeze phenomenon , where more moderate candidates are squeezed out by more extreme ones. However, the different types (or

9825-461: The authority, the financial resources and the flexibility to make decisions based on the individual needs of their schools. In 1976, the district initiated a pilot project in seven of its schools and in 1980 had expanded the concept to all of its schools. This initiative has led to Edmonton Public offering an innovative school of choice model in which students have more options as to what school they want to attend to suit their interests, and has led to

9956-439: The autism spectrum. Programming focuses on assisting students to gain socially appropriate communication and behaviour patterns in the classroom and community. This program assists students who have a moderate to profound hearing loss. Programming focuses on helping students gain communication skills and strategies necessary to complete school and access secondary education or employment. All students from grades 4-9 must learn

10087-601: The beginning of an important new era of growth and prosperity in Alberta, and the building was designed to reflect this importance and inspire awe and grandeur. The design included unique features such as the Ionic Romanesque pillared entranceways. McKay Avenue School served as the site of the first two sessions of the Alberta Legislature (1906 and 1907). It was on the third floor of Assembly Hall that

10218-437: The beginning years of their education. It is hypothesized that because of that seclusion, certain variants of a sign prevailed over others due to the choice of variant used by the student of the school/signers in the community. However, American Sign Language does not appear to be vastly varied in comparison to other signed languages. That is because when Deaf education was beginning in the United States, many educators flocked to

10349-552: The classroom and community. This program assists students with both severe behaviour and mild cognitive disabilities. Programming focuses on helping students to learn behaviour control and the pro-social, literacy and numeracy skills necessary for independence in the community. This program assists students with both moderate cognitive and severe behaviour disabilities. Programming focuses on helping students manage with their social, emotional and academic challenges. This program assists students who have been clinically diagnosed within

10480-596: The continued use of ASL. Societies such as the National Association of the Deaf and the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf held national conventions that attracted signers from across the country. All of that contributed to ASL's wide use over a large geographical area, atypical of a sign language. While oralism , an approach to educating deaf students focusing on oral language, had previously been used in American schools,

10611-416: The country in question in circumstances where the government's legislative agenda has broad public support, albeit potentially divided across party lines, or at least benefits society as a whole. However handing a legislative voting majority to a government which lacks popular support can be problematic where said government's policies favor only that fraction of the electorate that supported it, particularly if

10742-912: The creation of many very successful alternative programs such as Vimy Ridge Academy, Old Scona Academic and Victoria School of the Arts . The Edmonton Society for Christian Education and Millwoods Christian School (not part of the former) used to be private schools; however, have both also become part of Edmonton Public Schools as alternative programs. Today, school-based management is functioning successfully in other educational jurisdictions across Canada. Edmonton Public Schools' continuum grades are commonly found in two grade level groupings: kindergarten through grade six being Elementary and grades 7 through 12 being Secondary. Further, Secondary grade groupings can be broken into Junior High (7-9) and Senior High (10-12) schools. However, there are certain schools that include more than one grade level grouping or don't conform to

10873-491: The designated attendance area. For children who have high academic standards. This program is formatted to make the learning more challenging and focuses on problem solving and inquiry skills. This program is for children with advanced intellectual abilities. These students enjoy being challenged, grasp new ideas easily, and perform far beyond their current grade level. This program is for children for academic delays. This program focuses on literacy and numeracy. This program

11004-436: The districts, it is more likely that a single party will hold a majority of legislative seats under FPP than happens in a proportional system, and under FPP it is rare to elect a majority government that actually has the support of a majority of voters. Because FPP permits many wasted votes , an election under FPP is more easily gerrymandered. Through gerrymandering , electoral areas are designed deliberately to unfairly increase

11135-461: The early history of Edmonton and of Alberta, a history-conscious school board made a momentous decision:McKay Avenue School would be preserved to reflect the school district's past and to pass its history on to future generations. Edmonton Public Schools pioneered the concept of site-based decision making (decentralization) in Canada. Site-based decision making gives principals, who are ultimately responsible for everything that goes on in their schools,

11266-399: The election a center squeeze . By contrast, both Condorcet methods and score voting would return Nashville (the capital of Tennessee). Perhaps the most striking effect of FPP is the fact that the number of a party's seats in a legislature has nothing to do with its vote count in an election, only in how those votes were geographically distributed. This has been a target of criticism for

11397-629: The elections in Canada in 2019 and 2021 as well as in Japan in 2003 . Even when a party wins more than half the votes in an almost purely two-party-competition, it is possible for the runner-up to win a majority of seats. This happened in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 1966 , 1998 , and 2020 and in Belize in 1993 . Even with only two parties and equally-sized constituencies, winning

11528-407: The electorate divides on tribal, religious, or urban–rural lines. There is also the perceived issue of unfair coalitions where a smaller party can form a coalition with other smaller parties and form a government, without a clear mandate as was the case in the 2009 Israeli legislative election where the leading party Kadima , was unable to form a coalition so Likud , a smaller party, managed to form

11659-490: The fast-paced production for signers from the coasts could be due to the fast-paced nature of living in large metropolitan areas. That conclusion also supports how the ease with which Southerners sign could be caused by the easygoing environment of the South in comparison to that of the coasts. Sign production can also vary depending on age and native language. For example, sign production of letters may vary in older signers. Slight differences in finger spelling production can be

11790-542: The finishing post). In social choice , FPP is generally treated as a degenerate variant of ranked voting , where voters rank the candidates, but only the first preference matters. As a result, FPP is usually implemented with a choose-one ballot , where voters place a single bubble next to their favorite candidate. FPP has been used to elect the British House of Commons since the Middle Ages . Throughout

11921-407: The first preferences matter. As such, the votes would be counted as 42% for Memphis, 26% for Nashville, 17% for Knoxville, and 15% for Chattanooga. Since Memphis has the most votes, it would win a FPTP election, even though it is far from the center of the state and a majority of voters would prefer Nashville . Similarly, instant-runoff voting would elect Knoxville , the easternmost city. This makes

12052-461: The first teacher at ASD, taught using French Sign Language (LSF), which itself had developed in the Parisian school for the deaf established in 1755. From that situation of language contact , a new language emerged, now known as ASL. More schools for the deaf were founded after ASD, and knowledge of ASL spread to those schools. In addition, the rise of Deaf community organizations bolstered

12183-439: The government to give in to political blackmail and to reach compromises"; Tony Blair , defending FPP, argued that other systems give small parties the balance of power, and influence disproportionate to their votes. The concept of kingmakers is adjacent to how Winston Churchill criticized the alternative vote system as "determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates." meaning that votes for

12314-443: The group of features that make up a handshape is indicated collectively with a symbol. Several additional candidates for written ASL have appeared over the years, including SignFont , ASL-phabet , and Si5s . For English-speaking audiences, ASL is often glossed using English words. Such glosses are typically all-capitalized and are arranged in ASL order. For example, the ASL sentence DOG NOW CHASE>IX=3 CAT , meaning "the dog

12445-932: The grouping system. Elementary Schools offer instruction from kindergarten to grade six, unless otherwise noted. Junior high Schools offer instruction from grades seven to nine, unless otherwise noted. Senior High Schools offer instruction for grades ten, eleven and twelve, and offer 10, 20 and 30 level courses, unless otherwise noted. Combined Elementary/Junior High Schools offer instruction from kindergarten through grade nine, unless otherwise noted. Secondary Schools (combined Junior/Senior High) offer instruction from grade seven through twelve, and offer 10, 20 and 30 level courses, unless otherwise noted. Combined Elementary/Secondary Schools offer instruction in all grade levels from kindergarten to grade twelve, and offer 10, 20 and 30 level courses, unless otherwise noted. The Learning Stores are flexible-schedule store front operations for students who are returning to school or upgrading, and

12576-531: The history of ASL, was used mainly in Chilmark, Massachusetts . Due to intermarriage in the original community of English settlers of the 1690s, and the recessive nature of genetic deafness, Chilmark had a high 4% rate of genetic deafness. MVSL was used even by hearing residents whenever a deaf person was present, and also in some situations where spoken language would be ineffective or inappropriate, such as during church sermons or between boats at sea. ASL

12707-418: The important decision was made to make Edmonton the capital of Alberta. McKay Avenue School was designated a Provincial Historic Resource in 1976. The venerable brick building had played an important role in the educational, social and political development of Edmonton and Alberta, but when in 1983 the enrolment fell to a low of 59 students the school was closed. At that time, in recognition of its importance in

12838-525: The independent life skills necessary for supervised living and employment. This program assists students with severe to profound cognitive delays, including physical, sensory or behaviour disabilities. The program is designed to enhance quality of life for students and emphasizes functional life skills development. This program assists students with severe behaviour disabilities. Programming focuses on helping students make academic gains, learn socially acceptable behaviour and develop appropriate social skills in

12969-481: The individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing. It has been suggested that the distortions in geographical representation provide incentives for parties to ignore the interests of areas in which they are too weak to stand much chance of gaining representation, leading to governments that do not govern in the national interest. Further, during election campaigns the campaigning activity of parties tends to focus on marginal seats where there

13100-588: The largest party in Hungary since 2010 by changing the electoral system to mostly use FPP instead of the previous mixed system using mostly the two-round system . Since 2010, Fidesz has implemented other anti-democratic reforms that now mean the European Parliament no longer qualifies Hungary as a full democracy. Electoral reform campaigners have argued that the use of FPP in South Africa was

13231-514: The late 18th century, and its constitution provides for an electoral college to elect its president. Despite original intentions to the contrary, by the mid-19th century this college had transformed into a de facto use of FPP for each state's presidential election. This further morphed through the introduction of the party primary , which made American elections into a two-round system in practice. Non-plurality voting systems have been devised since at least 1299, when Ramon Llull came up with both

13362-526: The latter, smaller parties act as 'kingmakers' in coalitions as they have greater bargaining power and therefore, arguably, their influence on policy is disproportional to their parliamentary size- this is largely avoided in FPP systems where majorities are generally achieved. FPP often produces governments which have legislative voting majorities, thus providing such governments the legislative power necessary to implement their electoral manifesto commitments during their term in office. This may be beneficial for

13493-501: The leading party receive a majority of the votes. The position is sometimes summarized, in an extreme form, as "all votes for anyone other than the runner-up are votes for the winner." This is because votes for these other candidates deny potential support from the second-placed candidate, who might otherwise have won. Following the extremely close 2000 U.S. presidential election , some supporters of Democratic candidate Al Gore believed one reason he lost to Republican George W. Bush

13624-403: The least supported candidates may change the outcome of the election between the most supported candidates. In this case however, this is a feature of the alternative vote, since those votes would have otherwise been wasted (and in some sense this makes every vote count, as opposed to FPP), and this effect is only possible when no candidate receives an outright majority of first preference votes. it

13755-428: The method, many arguing that a fundamental requirement of an election system is to accurately represent the views of voters. FPP often creates "false majorities" by over-representing larger parties (giving a majority of the parliamentary/legislative seats to a party that did not receive a majority of the votes) while under-representing smaller ones. In Canada, majority governments have been formed due to one party winning

13886-536: The name "ASL" was not yet in widespread use. Incorrect figures are sometimes cited for the population of ASL users in the United States based on misunderstandings of known statistics. Demographics of the deaf population have been confused with those of ASL use since adults who become deaf late in life rarely use ASL in the home. That accounts for currently-cited estimations that are greater than 500,000; such mistaken estimations can reach as high as 15,000,000. A 100,000-person lower bound has been cited for ASL users;

14017-411: The north of England. This pattern hides the large number of votes for the non-dominant party. Parties can find themselves without elected politicians in significant parts of the country, heightening feelings of regionalism. Party supporters (who may nevertheless be a significant minority) in those sections of the country are unrepresented. In the 2019 Canadian federal election Conservatives won 98% of

14148-411: The number of seats won by one party by redrawing the map such that one party has a small number of districts in which it has an overwhelming majority of votes (whether due to policy, demographics which tend to favor one party, or other reasons), and many districts where it is at a smaller disadvantage. The British Electoral Reform Society (ERS) says that regional parties benefit from this system. "With

14279-471: The number required for victory. For example, in the UK general election of 2005 , 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes—a total of 70% "wasted" votes. On this basis a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. This winner-takes-all system may be one of the reasons why "voter participation tends to be lower in countries with FPP than elsewhere." The effect of

14410-408: The object as a whole, incorporating such attributes as surface, depth, and shape, and is usually very iconic. The movement root consists of a path, a direction and a manner. In linguistics, there are two primary ways of changing the form of a word: derivation and inflection. Derivation involves creating new words by adding something to an existing word, while inflection involves changing the form of

14541-653: The other hand received one seat per 34,000 votes. The winner-takes-all nature of FPP leads to distorted patterns of representation, since it exaggerates the correlation between party support and geography. For example, in the UK the Conservative Party represents most of the rural seats in England, and most of the south of England, while the Labour Party represents most of the English cities and most of

14672-550: The other hand, it is also known that some imported ASL varieties have diverged to the extent of being separate languages. For example, Malaysian Sign Language , which has ASL origins, is no longer mutually comprehensible with ASL and must be considered its own language. For some imported ASL varieties, such as those used in West Africa, it is still an open question how similar they are to American ASL. When communicating with hearing English speakers, ASL-speakers often use what

14803-436: The palms, and there are some grammatical differences from standard ASL in order to compensate for the lack of nonmanual signing . ASL changes over time and from generation to generation. The sign for telephone has changed as the shape of phones and the manner of holding them have changed. The development of telephones with screens has also changed ASL, encouraging the use of signs that can be seen on small screens. In 2013,

14934-585: The party colors). Because voters have to predict who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted: Proponents of other voting methods in single-member districts argue that these would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect . Examples include preferential voting systems, such as instant runoff voting , as well as the two-round system of runoffs and less tested methods such as approval voting and Condorcet methods . Wasted votes are seen as those cast for losing candidates, and for winning candidates in excess of

15065-410: The phonemes that distinguish meaning in signed languages like ASL. Changing any one of them may change the meaning of a sign, as illustrated by the ASL signs THINK and DISAPPOINTED: There are also meaningful nonmanual signals in ASL, which may include movement of the eyebrows, the cheeks, the nose, the head, the torso, and the eyes. William Stokoe proposed that such components are analogous to

15196-479: The predominant method of deaf education up to the 1950s. Linguists did not consider sign language to be true "language" but as something inferior. Recognition of the legitimacy of ASL was achieved by William Stokoe , a linguist who arrived at Gallaudet University in 1955 when that was still the dominant assumption. Aided by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s , Stokoe argued for manualism ,

15327-700: The proliferation of ASL through schools influenced by the American School for the Deaf, wherein ASL originated, and the rise of community organizations for the Deaf. Throughout West Africa , ASL-based sign languages are signed by educated Deaf adults. Such languages, imported by boarding schools, are often considered by associations to be the official sign languages of their countries and are named accordingly, such as Nigerian Sign Language , Ghanaian Sign Language . Such signing systems are found in Benin , Burkina Faso , Ivory Coast , Ghana , Liberia , Mauritania , Mali , Nigeria , and Togo . Due to lack of data, it

15458-419: The same language family . However, that does not seem justified historically for ASL and Auslan, and it is likely that the resemblance is caused by the higher degree of iconicity in sign languages in general as well as contact with English. American Sign Language is growing in popularity in many states. Many high school and university students desire to take it as a foreign language, but until recently, it

15589-604: The same sign may be signed in a different way depending on the region. For example, an extremely common type of variation is between the handshapes /1/, /L/, and /5/ in signs with one handshape. There is also a distinct variety of ASL used by the Black Deaf community. Black ASL evolved as a result of racially segregated schools in some states, which included the residential schools for the deaf. Black ASL differs from standard ASL in vocabulary, phonology, and some grammatical structure. While African American English (AAE)

15720-553: The same time. On the other hand, the Constitution Society published a report in April 2019 stating that, "[in certain circumstances] FPP can ... abet extreme politics , since should a radical faction gain control of one of the major political parties, FPP works to preserve that party's position. ...This is because the psychological effect of the plurality system disincentivises a major party's supporters from voting for

15851-603: The seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan with only 68% of the vote. The lack of non-Conservative representation gives the appearance of greater Conservative support than actually exists. Similarly, in Canada's 2021 elections, the Conservative Party won 88% of the seats in Alberta with only 55% of the vote, and won 100% of the seats in Saskatchewan with only 59% of the vote. First-past-the-post within geographical areas tends to deliver (particularly to larger parties)

15982-450: The source of that figure is unclear, but it may be an estimate of prelingual deafness , which is correlated with but not equivalent to signing. ASL is sometimes incorrectly cited as the third- or fourth-most-spoken language in the United States. Those figures misquote Schein and Delk (1974), who actually concluded that ASL speakers constituted the third-largest population "requiring an interpreter in court". Although that would make ASL

16113-412: The third-most used language among monolinguals other than English, it does not imply that it is the fourth-most-spoken language in the United States since speakers of other languages may also speak English. ASL is used throughout Anglo-America . That contrasts with Europe, where a variety of sign languages are used within the same continent. The unique situation of ASL seems to have been caused by

16244-1037: The use of sign for educating children often lead to the absence of sign during periods in children's lives when they can access languages most effectively. Scholars such as Beth S. Benedict advocate not only for bilingualism (using ASL and English training) but also for early childhood intervention for children who are deaf. York University psychologist Ellen Bialystok has also campaigned for bilingualism, arguing that those who are bilingual acquire cognitive skills that may help to prevent dementia later in life. Most children born to deaf parents are hearing. Known as CODAs ("Children of Deaf Adults"), they are often more culturally Deaf than deaf children, most of whom are born to hearing parents. Unlike many deaf children, CODAs acquire ASL as well as Deaf cultural values and behaviors from birth. Such bilingual hearing children may be mistakenly labeled as being "slow learners" or as having "language difficulties" because of preferential attitudes towards spoken language. Although there

16375-424: The use of sign language in deaf education. Stokoe noted that sign language shares the important features that oral languages have as a means of communication, and even devised a transcription system for ASL. In doing so, Stokoe revolutionized both deaf education and linguistics. In the 1960s, ASL was sometimes referred to as "Ameslan", but that term is now considered obsolete. Counting the number of ASL signers

16506-604: The various Wikimedia projects on Wikimedia Incubator and elsewhere involving SignWriting. The ASL Misplaced Pages request was marked as eligible in 2008 and the test ASL Misplaced Pages has 50 articles written in ASL using SignWriting. The most widely used transcription system among academics is HamNoSys , developed at the University of Hamburg . Based on Stokoe Notation, HamNoSys was expanded to about 200 graphs in order to allow transcription of any sign language. Phonological features are usually indicated with single symbols, though

16637-475: Was created in that situation by language contact . ASL was influenced by its forerunners but distinct from all of them. The influence of French Sign Language (LSF) on ASL is readily apparent; for example, it has been found that about 58% of signs in modern ASL are cognate to Old French Sign Language signs. However, that is far less than the standard 80% measure used to determine whether related languages are actually dialects . That suggests nascent ASL

16768-517: Was held on October 18, 2021. The public and Catholic systems operate independently of each other, and are both under the direct authority of the provincial government of Alberta . Edmonton's first schoolhouse was built in 1881 in the Saskatchewan River valley and was in use as a school until 1904. The wooden-frame building was the first free public school in Alberta, and sometimes served as a courthouse and meeting hall. The school building

16899-654: Was highly affected by the other signing systems brought by the ASD students although the school's original director, Laurent Clerc , taught in LSF. In fact, Clerc reported that he often learned the students' signs rather than conveying LSF: I see, however, and I say it with regret, that any efforts that we have made or may still be making, to do better than, we have inadvertently fallen somewhat back of Abbé de l'Épée. Some of us have learned and still learn signs from uneducated pupils, instead of learning them from well instructed and experienced teachers. It has been proposed that ASL

17030-597: Was restored as an Edmonton Public Schools' centennial project in 1982, and has been moved to the grounds of the former McKay Avenue School (now the Edmonton Public Schools Archives and Museum). It is a Provincial Historic Resource. Edmonton Public Schools Archives and Museum is located in the historic McKay Avenue School. The building's cornerstone was laid in 1904 by the Governor General of Canada, Lord Minto. The year 1904 marked

17161-537: Was usually not considered a creditable foreign language elective. ASL users, however, have a very distinct culture, and they interact very differently when they talk. Their facial expressions and hand movements reflect what they are communicating. They also have their own sentence structure, which sets the language apart. American Sign Language is now being accepted by many colleges as a language eligible for foreign language course credit; many states are making it mandatory to accept it as such. In some states however, this

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