By Sheldon Spackman

Local school districts waiting for details on how to allocate unexpected funding

May 11, 2018 | 9:43 PM

Senior leadership with Wolf Creek Public Schools and their local Teacher’s Association have come together to make recommendations on how to allocate some unexpected funding from the province this year.

Wolf Creek Superintendent Jayson Lovell says an email sent out by the Education Minister on April 26, indicated the district would be in line to receive $904,000 from the Classroom Improvement Fund (CIF), although that amount he adds is still not confirmed.

“Last year it was thought to be a one-time fund and when budget came out this March, there was no mention of it, so we were not expecting it,” explains Lovell. “What of course happened is we went through our budget deliberations and the Board passed the budget and in Wolf Creek it was a very difficult budget this year with $2.6 million in reductions. The minister’s email indicated that the funding for the Classroom Improvement Fund had been included in the budget and it’s the intention to continue the program for next year.”

However, more details on how the unexpected funding is to be allocated is still anticipated in the near future, Lovell says.

“We have four areas that we’ve decided that we would allocate,” he says. “Half of that fund is going to go towards our school social workers. That was the major reduction area in our original budget, which is another 5.65 FTE social workers in Wolf Creek.”

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“That is a real blessing for us to be able to restore because we had originally reduced our social workers in half with those budget reductions, so this brings it back to only an overall 25 per cent reduction,” adds Lovell. “There’s also some additional classroom teacher allocations, so two full-time teachers, five educational assistants and a 0.2 of an inclusion coach position. This is a position that’s in place to help our schools with inclusion, which is students that have diverse learning needs or learning needs that require extra support.”

Elsewhere, Bev Manning, Board Chair with Red Deer Public Schools says the news is a bit of a surprise but they aren’t aware at this point of any specifics regarding the new funding.

“The process we used last year was to get a committee together with the teachers and have a look at where best to put those funds,” recalls Manning. “I would think we would be looking at sort of a similar process depending on how much it is we get from the government. It’s hard to say until we actually see the money and figure out how much exactly we’re going to get.”

Last year, Manning says they hired some Educational Assistants and put some funds back into the classroom with the Classroom Improvement Funding.

“It can be eaten up pretty quickly by staffing and so we were concerned that we weren’t going to be able to keep that level of staffing up,” explains Manning. “That’s always a concern when you put a one-time funding into a staffing position because if you don’t get the money again, then that’s a pretty difficult situation you’re in.”

Manning adds, although they’re happy to see the CIF continue, an increase in the per-pupil grant could help even more.

“That would be our best case cenario and that way we would have flexibility to use that money,” she says. “If that grant were increased, that money would again come in next year and we could count on it, rather than kind of have to wonder from year to year, so that would be our preference.”

Kurt Sacher, Superintendent for the Chinook’s Edge School Division says they anticipate receiving at least as much as they did last year, over $1.3 million.

“We have not received specifics on the limits around how to utilize the funding,” admits Sacher. “Typically in the past, we’ve been able to use it for our staffing needs, so educational assistants, teacher time, professional development and resources, so we’re hoping to have a similar process this year. Their may be some changes but we’ll deal with those accordingly.”

‘It allows us to provide some additional supports that we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” continues Sacher. “Particularly for students with complex needs. That is an ongoing challenge for our staff right across the school jurisdiction, so whenever you have an injection of funds you can apply to that, it’s definetly well received.”   

Officials with Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools say they are currently working on their 2018-2019 budget and are unable to comment on any potential new funding at this point.

In Clearview Public Schools, the process of surveying teachers has begun around the Classroom Improvement Fund and its impact and to also inform professional learning initiatives for next year. 

The Classroom Improvement Fund (CIF) was announced last year as a one-time grant to put $75 million into classrooms across the province in 2017-2018 to improve the classroom experience for students and teachers. As a result, more than 400 teaching and support positions were expected to be created for the current school year.

Locally, the Red Deer Public School District received $1,265,000, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools $1,139,000, Chinook’s Edge $1,314,000, Wolf Creek $904,000, Wild Rose School Division $636,000 and Clearview School Division $362,000.

Officials say the CIF is distributed to schools based on student enrolment.