St. Albert Protestant Schools can and will make do with half of the expected funding for their Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) projects; they just aren’t thrilled about it.
The provincial government announced in its most recent budget that districts will only be getting 50 per cent of what they would have normally for AISI this year, the second in a three-year funding cycle.
AISI grants are given to school divisions throughout the province to fund local research and professional development with the goal of improving education for students.
This cut leaves the Protestant division with roughly $449,000 to play with next year.
“We were able to bring forward to the superintendent, and ultimately to the board of trustees, what we think is quite a reasonable strategy to deal with where we’re at,” said Michael Brenneis, secretary-treasurer and associate superintendent, at Wednesday’s board meeting.
The school division’s AISI co-ordinator will continue, as will reporting for the province.
Financially, schools with AISI programming will be expected to live within their means.
The $340,000 received as of March will be expected to last 18 months instead of six, carrying over into the coming school year. This money was set aside for individual schools and will stay that way.
The other, less preferred option was to centralize the money and redistribute it.
“We’re saying please re-evaluate those plans to make those dollars stretch,” said Brenneis. “Maybe this is not entirely fair but that is the way it is. It’s the best we could do with the funds we’re given.”
There is also $27,000 of undesignated dollars sitting in the central AISI budget.
Brenneis and his people were commended by the board for the work done, but trustees also expressed its discontent for the province’s choice to switch up the funding in the middle of its cycle.
“We have heard for the last two or three years about how engagement of students is important. We have a project that is working on engagement of students and they’re cutting its funding,” said Joan Trettler, board chair. “I find this very, very frustrating.”
“I can see, sadly, that when times are tough you may say ‘next cycle,’” said trustee Morag Pansegrau. “But when you’ve given a commitment and people have staffed and have programs in place, you can’t justify just cutting it midway through.”
This gets the school district through the current cycle. The fourth has since AISI begun.
A bigger concern in the minds of some at the table Wednesday night is whether there will be a fifth cycle.
The province has stated AISI continues to be among its priorities.
