Nicole Buchanan, Board Chair, Red Deer Public Schools (Supplied photo)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

cash crunch

Dollars per student a big concern for Red Deer Public Schools

Aug 20, 2020 | 1:56 PM

It could be a financially straining year for many Alberta school divisions.

That includes Red Deer Public Schools where officials are trying to keep up with changes made by the United Conservative government to how education is funded.

“Funding returned to regular levels as of July 1, (but) overall there are more students in the K-12 system every year, (so) while the government still spends the same total dollars, eventually that catches up and effectively means less funding,” Board Chair Nicole Buchanan points out. “Remember as well, there were seven years where there was no increase to the per pupil funding allocation to school boards.”

One example of hardship cited by Buchanan is the province’s elimination of the Regional Collaborative Service Delivery model, which centralized funding for education partners.

She says while the new framework still provides dollars for services such as speech therapy and psychology, it’s less than actual costs jurisdictions will incur, resulting in a net loss for divisions.

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“Changes to Program Unit Funding have also seen a reduction in funded students reducing Pre-kindergarten programming for students identified with potential learning struggles,” she adds.

In Red Deer this week, parent-driven group Hold My Hand held a rally outside the office of Education Minister Adriana LaGrange to call for a better plan to protect students. Their demands include funding to rehire all the educational assistants let go last spring when the government cut education funding by $128 million to combat COVID-19.

At Red Deer Public, there were 230 full time EA positions as of April 1, 2020. Buchanan says the division will bring back 201 ahead of the first day of school on Sept. 1

Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools says continuous EAs are being recalled.

In a statement to rdnewsNOW, Alberta Education says, “If a school authority is not rehiring the staff they chose to lay off, they are doing this despite having their full funding restored and despite receiving an increase in operational funding for the upcoming school year.”

Buchanan disputes that claim, saying it doesn’t paint the complete picture.

“School boards across the province would agree that we are making do with less and needing to deliver more than we ever have,” she says. “While school boards were provided with additional funding, the government expects us to ‘buy more’ with those dollars. The increased revenue does not meet increased expenses school boards are facing.”

In response to Alberta Education saying parents and families should hold trustees accountable, Buchanan says that is welcomed. But she also points to flaws in LaGrange’s logic when points out there is $363 million in reserves for school divisions to fall back on.

“It is prudent financial planning to have reserves. It is the responsible thing to do,” Buchanan says. “Red Deer Public is using $3 million of reserves this year to try and maintain services. We are fortunate to have these reserves, but many jurisdictions don’t and the impact is significant. We anticipate this would leave up to $4 million in (our) reserves for future years, yet with the uncertainty of costs given the COVID pandemic, this number may be less at the end of this school year.”

Buchanan says if one divides the $363 million in reserves by Alberta’s approximately 742,000 students, it works out to about $480/student, or just slightly over $2.40 per school day.

With an $8.2 billion budget for all Alberta schools and 200 operational days, that would fund under nine days of regular operations, she points out.

“In talking with our neighbouring boards in central Alberta, many have depleted reserves and are facing incredible challenges within the existing funding,” Buchanan concludes.

“For the upcoming school year, the government allowed school boards to collectively draw down up to $100 million in reserves. We understand a significant portion of these reserves were drawn down by boards across the province. Try reworking the above numbers with $100 million less in reserves.”