By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Red Deer Public Schools questions effectiveness of province’s Classroom Improvement Fund

Feb 22, 2018 | 4:27 PM

School divisions and students across the province are seeing positive impacts from money agreed upon in a deal reached last year between the Government of Alberta and Alberta Teachers’ Association.

The $75 million Classroom Improvement Fund was split between all school districts in Alberta with the purpose of improving the classroom experience for all students.

But one local school division says while they were able to do some good things with the money, it represents a failing of the way teacher contracts are negotiated.

Red Deer Public Schools Board Chair Bev Manning says the $75 million was used as a way to ‘seal the deal’ between the province and teachers, and could better benefit students if school boards could negotiate with teachers on a local level.

“If we were to be able to negotiate locally like we used to, we could address these needs locally rather than the province just giving a whole whack of money and telling us to use it to improve our classrooms,” Manning says. “We would be able to work with our teachers and decide if money needs to go here or there, and it’s more of a collegial process.”

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Manning says while it’s unlikely school boards will ever get that ability back, they have to keep harping on the government about it or else what autonomy they have left will completely erode.

“The removal of our ability to negotiate locally with our ATA was a giant step down that road. Further to that, there’s been some small steps such as Bill 1 (to reduce school fees),” she says. “They just tend to bestow these rules upon us and say ‘Thou shalt,’ and that’s not what locally elected school boards do.”

If it were up to her, instead of a $75 million Classroom Improvement Fund, Manning would see the per-pupil funding increased, something which hasn’t been done since 2012.

Making matters worse, she says, is the fact that the Government of Alberta recently put a cap on how many credits a student can earn per year, something school boards also receive money for. Superintendent Stu Henry says that move will end up costing the division hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

As for the Classroom Improvement Fund, Henry says he has one main concern.

“It’s only for one year, which really hampers our ability to do some more creative and long-term things,” he says. “We do worry about the sustainability of anything we did with this money.”

In the end, Red Deer Public spent about one-third of its $1.265 million allotment to hire two new teachers, while bumping several others from almost to completely full-time, and added five EAs. The rest was spent on classroom resources including a collection of Indigenous-related library items.

At Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools, the division received $1.139 million and used $260,000 on professional development opportunities for teachers. The remainder was split between all schools to enhance classrooms with new technologies or mini libraries.

“It was really important for us that it be sustainable and live beyond one year,” says Board Chair Anne Marie Watson. “It’s huge anytime we can have extra money, especially something that goes right into the classroom. That just has a real impact on our students and is a huge blessing for our division.”

Wolf Creek Public Schools received $904,000. It was put towards two full-time teachers, about 13 full-time EA positions, and split between schools for professional development committees, learning resources and literary resources.

At Wild Rose School Division, $636,000 was spent on one teacher hire, a number of EA hires, professional development opportunities and other classroom resources.

Chinook’s Edge was approved for $1.314 million, and Greater North Central Francophone, which operates École La Prairie, received $473,000.