Alberta’s education minister is shaking up school funding, and that could mean less money for St. Albert schools.
LaGrange said education funding in Alberta had jumped 80 per cent since the current funding model was established in 2004, while inflation and enrolment had risen just 33 and 25 per cent, respectively.
“This is simply not sustainable,” she said, and this new formula was meant to get funding back on track.
LaGrange said this new approach, which would kick in this September, would reduce red tape and mean more predictable funding for Alberta’s school boards.
“Every school board in this province will see an increase in their funding for the upcoming 2020/21 school year.”
LaGrange would not put a dollar amount to that increase prior to next week’s budget. She said the province would hold education funding at its current level of $8.223 billion, and the extra cash would come through administrative efficiencies.
St. Albert Public superintendent Krimsen Sumners and Greater St. Albert Catholic board chair Joe Becigneul said they were skeptical of LaGrange’s claim, as several parts of the new program could result in less cash for St. Albert schools.
“I want to see the cheque,” quipped Becigneul.
Move to rolling average
The big change in the funding model was a switch to a three-year weighted average from a per-pupil model.
Right now, schools are funded based on the number of students they have each year. Since schools don’t get that head-count until late September, they have to guess as to the amount of money they’ll have when they plan budgets each spring. A spike or drop in enrolment can send boards scrambling for funds.
The new model will set funding each April based on a three-year rolling population average – half based on next year’s projected enrolment, and half based on the current and previous ones. This means trustees will know exactly how much cash they have to work with when they sit down to do their budgets each spring, LaGrange said.
This was something that boards have wanted for years, as it allows them to plan budgets more than one year at a time, Becigneul said. But Sumners noted that it could put boards that see a sudden spike in enrolment at a disadvantage, as they’d have to wait several years before it was reflected in that average.
Graphs released by Alberta Education showed that this system could favour boards with declining enrolment, as the rolling average could make their student numbers (and thus their funding) higher than they actually were.
LaGrange said high school funding would also become per pupil instead of per course credit as it is now. Students who took four or five years to finish high school would be funded at half and a quarter of the regular rate, respectively, as those students typically take fewer courses.
While Alberta Education officials said this would save money, as schools would no longer have to count up credits, Sumners said it would make life difficult for special needs students, who typically take longer to finish school.
Becigneul noted that some high school students take many more credits than they need to graduate, and those additional courses aren’t accounted for under this model.
“There will be less funding at the high school level,” he said, and it’s not clear what this will mean for options and extracurricular activities.
Becigneul and Sumners said they’d need to see the exact dollars attached to this new approach in next week’s provincial budget before they could determine its precise effects on students.
“The devil will be in the details,” Sumners said.
An outline of the new funding model is at bit.ly/2uZNqu2.
