The Alberta government is looking to the future as existing schools are struggling with funding. 

With three-quarters of CBE schools currently operating at full capacity and some schools needing up to three overflow schools, the Alberta government’s School Construction Accelerator Program (SCAP), will help build schools quickly despite previous funding shortfalls. 

“Alberta’s government is addressing the challenges of student growth and aging schools head-on,” Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said in a Wednesday-morning press conference. 

“In September, we announced a program that will make an $8.6 billion investment into building and modernizing schools.” 

The investment will fund 90 new schools and 24 school renovations across the province. 

The first stage of the announcement came earlier this year when 41 new school projects were announced. 

Nicolaides announced that 11 previously approved projects were ready to move into the next stage of construction. 

“Projects that are ready to move to the next stage are now capable and able to receive funding in a year, eliminating the need to wait for the next budget cycle,” Nicolaides said. 

Similar development announcements will come as more projects become available, he said. 

For the 2025/26 school year, the CBE will receive a $55 million funding increase. 

“An increase in funding is better than flat funding or a decrease in funding,” said CBE Trustee Susan Vukadinovic at the Tuesday board of trustees meeting.  

“But our board of trustees had been advocating for a $180 million increase at last year’s enrollment numbers.” 

The CBE expects an additional 3,700 students for the 2025/26 school year. 

The $55 million will help with increased enrollment but will not move the needle on per-student funding, an amount that Vukadinovic said has “essentially” remained the same since 2019, despite a big increase in inflation. 

“When the cost of everything goes up, but the per student funding for public education from the provincial government stays flat, it impacts us in three ways,” Vukadinovic said. 

The three impacted factors were increased class sizes, supporting students with complex needs and the inability to open additional “programs of choice.” 

Vukadinovic said that many CBE students are waiting to get into programs like French immersion and science schools. 

The CBE has not opened a new alternative program since the 2011 opening of the all-boys program at Sir James Lougheed School. 

Operational funding coming for new schools

Nicolaides said that changes have been made in Budget 2025, including increasing base funding rates provided for schools and a $1.1 billion investment over the next three years.  

The education minister said that as enrollment increases, funding does as well, but he could not detail any upcoming increases in per-student funding. 

“We’ve also pulled away from the three-year method of funding schools to a two-year model, all of that will help provide more funding to our schools,” he said. 

Nicolaides said that his government has accounted for the operating costs for the schools set to open from SCAP. 

“We need to make sure that we’re investing to build schools, but we also need to make sure that we’re providing more operating funding to our school divisions so that we can operate these new schools,” he said. 

The $1.1 billion three-year investment will help hire more than 4,000 additional teachers and educational support staff, Nicolaides estimates. 

“Funding to our school divisions is based on an enrollment projection. As enrollment continues to increase, as does funding,” he said. 

“We are working to make sure that we’re providing more operating funding to our schools.”