The Calgary Board of Education and the Calgary Catholic School District say they are waiting for funding portfolios from Alberta Education before they can determine how the new two-year funding model will affect their budgets.
On Wednesday, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides unveiled details of the province’s new funding model for public school districts. The new model will rely on two-year enrolment averages instead of a three-year rolling average. Thirty per cent of the funding will be based on enrolment numbers from the 2024-2025 school year, while the rest of the 70 per cent will be based on the upcoming year’s projected enrolment.
“We’ve listened closely to our teachers, trustees and other partners, and are responding by changing the way we fund our schools,” he told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.
“Moving to this two-year funding model will give growing boards more funding sooner, while protecting rural schools with declining numbers.”
Marilyn Dennis, president of the Alberta School Board Association, said she appreciates the new funding model because trustees across the province have raised concerns about enrolment pressures.
Calgary Board of Education school trustees penned a letter in November urging the Ministry of Education to revise its funding framework for schools. The letter said the current weighted moving average funding framework is inadequate because it has not been adjusted for inflation. Patricia Bolger, chair of the CBE’s board of trustees, wrote that inflation has eroded the CBE’s purchasing power by more than 20 per cent because funding hasn’t increased since the2018-2019 academic year.
“The Alberta School Boards Association has been advocating to government to review the funding formula. We recognize the shift to a two-year average funding model is intended to help school boards better manage enrollment challenges, whether they are experiencing rapid growth or declining enrollment, and we also acknowledge the additional grants made available for our rural boards in particular,” Dennis said at Wednesday’s news conference.
“We will work with our members to assess how this change affects overall funding stability and whether additional measures may be needed, but we are committed to ongoing dialog with the government to ensure that all boards, regardless of enrollment trends are adequately supported.”
Calgary’s school boards awaiting funding portfolio
In an email to LiveWire Calgary, the Calgary Catholic School District said it cannot fully understand how the funding model will impact the district until it receives its 2025-2026 funding portfolio from Alberta Education.
The CCSD is currently projecting a $21.5 million deficit in its 2024-2025 Operating Budget, which was approved last May.
The district is also grappling with record enrolment levels. The district now has a total of 63,519 students as of Sept. 27, 2024. This is more than three per cent higher compared with numbers from the same time period in 2023. It is also a seven per cent increase compared to numbers from Sept. 30, 2022.
“The new funding model benefits growing school boards like the Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD), with more emphasis placed on the projected enrolment of the upcoming year. CCSD looks forward to receiving our funding profile from Alberta Education to fully understand the funding we will receive and its impact on our financial outlook for 2025-2026,” a spokesperson told LWC in an emailed statement on Wednesday.
Alberta Teacher’s Association reacts
The Alberta Teacher’s Association President Jason Schilling said the union was not involved in the consultation process for this new funding model, and criticized the Alberta government for not providing more funding to public schools.
In an interview with LWC, Schilling said he’s concerned the funding model will not adequately address the funding issues many public schools face. Schilling previously said $11.35 billion would be needed to properly fund public education across the province, while the province is committing only $9.9 billion.
The province also did not announce changes to per-student funding in Budget 2025. Currently, the province invests around $9,000 per student, which hasn’t changed since the 2018-19 school year.
“We had asked, prior to budget coming out, that we were looking for $11.35 billion just to bring the spending by school boards to the Canadian average, not necessarily top three, just the Canadian average,” he told LWC.
“I know that there’s an increase of 4.5% [for operating expenses] to this budget, but it’s not enough to address the growing needs that we’re seeing across the province in terms of class size and complexity.”
Schilling also raised concerns about the percentage of funding that is hinged on projected enrolment growth.
“If [a school board has] 3000 new students, this is still 1000 students that are not accounted for in terms of the funding. And those students come to our classrooms with needs and we’re not funding them. Makes no sense to me,” he said.
