There will be about 250 fewer public school staff in Edmonton next year as the school department prepares to welcome more than 2,800 new students.
Trustees of public schools approved a $ 1.2 billion budget on Friday, which they say will lead to more classes and less support for students with disabilities and additional needs.
Board chairman Trisha Estabrooks said it was disappointing to see funding fail to keep pace with growth and spending as oil revenues flowed into the province’s treasury.
“This provincial government is balancing the budget on the backs of the children in this province at a time when we need investment in future generations. And that makes it difficult, “Estabrox said.
Limited provincial funding and rising utility and transportation costs make more money from classrooms, said Superintendent Darrell Robertson.
The department has planned 138 fewer teaching assistants to return to classrooms next year to help students with disabilities.
More than 200 teaching positions will also be eliminated as the school department stops offering parallel online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robertson said in previous years, the department had more opportunities to hire some of these employees in the fall after seeing which children showed up and where. He said much of this spinning room was gone.
Estabrooks said the money cut was the result of three years of a new formula for funding the province that punishes growing urban schools. Even with $ 57 million in additional “bridge” funding to bridge the gap, the department estimates there are more than 1,600 full-time students who are not funded by the Edmonton Society, the province’s second-largest school.
Funding is not keeping pace with enrollment, Robertson said. Students will receive the help they need, but staff will be less frequent, he said, and the trend is unsustainable.
“It will be impossible to operate and take care of the needs of children,” he said.
The trustees were desperate about the state of funding. Guardian Marsha Hole’s voice was broken when she described how “heartbreaking” it is that limited spending affects children with mental health challenges and disabilities in particular.
Although the provincial government has promised $ 110 million for mental health and additional recovery assistance from the COVID-19 pandemic, Robertson said the public in Edmonton will not come close to meeting the needs of students.
Celtic Marshall, center, has seven children enrolled in public schools in Edmonton, five of whom need extra help. She is surrounded by children (clockwise from top left) Elijah Gaunt, 17, Duncan Gaunt, 16, Malea Gaunt, 16, Judah Marshall, 7, Bennett Marshall, 9. (Submitted by Celty Marshall)
The news of the planned layoffs is disappointing for Kelty Marshall, co-founder of the Hold My Hand Alberta group, which advocates for children with disabilities. Five of her nine children need extra help at school.
The growing number of students competing for a limited number of education assistants, speech therapists, occupational therapists and other school professionals is making classrooms increasingly unsafe for some children, she said.
Now that the provincial government is offering home-schooled families access to some professionals, it is encouraging more parents to remove their children with disabilities from classrooms – and that’s not right, Marshall said.
The proposed cuts are “striking” and will lead to a stressful summer for some parents who remain wondering if their children will have the help and supervision they need next fall, she said.
“One EA less is too much,” Marshall said. “We are already in a critical situation. We cannot lose another support for our children.”
In an email, Catherine Stavropoulos, a spokeswoman for Education Minister Adriana Lagrange, said the department was “extremely well funded”. She said the department has received more funding than the formula has allowed in the last two years, and has little money in reserve.
The school unit plans to use $ 10 million of its savings next year, leaving about $ 15 million in reserves.
The budget does not take into account the money set by the province for the implementation of a new curriculum and the purchase of resources, new money for mental health or the potential costs of new contracts for teachers and other staff.
Earlier this week, Edmonton Catholic School also approved a $ 528 million budget that would add 10 new teaching positions. Officials said they had received fixed funding and expected an increase in enrollment of less than one per cent. This council draws nearly $ 6 million in reserves to cover rising staff costs.
Add Comment