Only one teacher will be laid off in St. Albert next year but the effects of job losses due to employee retirements will have an impact on classrooms in both the Catholic and Protestant school systems.
In the Greater St. Albert Catholic School District, 20 full-time teaching positions will be lost, with 19 of those due to retirement. In addition the district will decrease 5.2 non-certified staffing positions including two educational assistants. As a result there will be a slight increase in the number of students in classrooms from kindergarten to Grade 9.
“Due to provincial funding challenges, it was necessary to increase the board-approved class sizes by .5 [student] at the kindergarten to Grade 3 level and by one [student] at the grade 4 to 9 level,” said Lauri-Ann Turnbull, chair of the Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board.
St. Albert Protestant School District will have 11 fewer teachers next year, all due to retirements. They will not be replaced.
“Our classrooms will be tighter, but not significantly because we had set aside money and we will be using those reserves,” said St. Albert Protestant School Board chair Joan Trettler.
Both school districts will use their cash reserves to help them navigate this funding crunch. In addition, an anticipated decrease in the student population in both the Catholic and Protestant districts will mean fewer teachers will be required.
“We have cash reserves saved from years when we did not use all our money. But the government recommends that two per cent of our funding be held in reserve,” Turnbull said.
The Catholic district estimates 105 fewer students will register next year. That includes 54 fewer students in Morinville and is based on the study done by Pivotal Research regarding how many elementary-aged students would register in a non-faith-based school system. The district’s projections also suggest 49 fewer students will attend St. Albert Catholic High School in 2011/12.
The Protestant district is predicting 200 fewer students.
Reduced provincial funding will also affect students with special needs.
The Catholic system will not fill or rehire for positions lost due to attrition for two educational assistants and the Protestant district will lose one teaching assistant.
“The impact will vary at every school. There is no increase for special needs funding. That may mean perhaps that two children will share one teaching assistant and there may be less help for a particular child,” Trettler explained
“Next year it will be critical. We cannot keep using our reserves. There’s going to be a shortfall.”
Turnbull said that after three consecutive deficits, maintaining the quality of education for each student is increasingly difficult.
“All programming will be the same next year, but for example we have three fewer technical support staff members, so students may not have their computers fixed as quickly if something breaks down. We may have to change the way we do programming, but in the end, the government needs to focus more on education and there needs to be more funding.”
