Western Standard - Supporting growing student enrolment in schools

00:00:00.000 all right i'm seeing lots of thumbs up so i guess that means i'm good to go good morning

00:00:30.000 everyone. And thank you for joining me today. It's a real pleasure to be here at the amazing

00:00:36.580 Holy Child Elementary School in Edmonton. I want to thank, of course, first and foremost,

00:00:42.840 Principal Christine Sampson. Thank you so much, Christine, for letting us pop by and make today's

00:00:49.400 important announcement. As well, just recently chatting with Assistant Principal, it was Amanda,

00:00:54.380 right? Amanda, thank you so much as well. Thank you both for the incredible work that you do here

00:00:59.300 at Holy Child to make sure all the amazing students here get a world-class education.

00:01:05.320 And similarly, of course, that extends to all teachers and all staff here at the school

00:01:11.480 for their contribution in work and just broadly across Edmonton Catholic School Division and

00:01:17.360 across all of our school divisions.

00:01:19.140 Thank you for all the amazing work that you do.

00:01:22.240 The Alberta Advantage is back and booming.

00:01:26.760 Our economy is stronger than ever, with new investments pouring into our province on what seems to be an almost weekly basis.

00:01:36.400 Just a couple of weeks ago, Amazon announced that they would be building their first ever Canadian wind farm right here in Alberta.

00:01:44.620 This is a strong sign of Alberta's economy.

00:01:48.260 economy, and thanks as well to an affordable cost of living, Canadians and people from

00:01:55.260 around the world are flocking to our amazing province once again. In fact, Alberta is on

00:02:01.340 track for the biggest population boom since 1914. While that growth has been great for

00:02:10.500 the provincial economy, it has also resulted in an unprecedented number of new students

00:02:15.600 entering alberta's education system through budget 2023 we worked to boost overall education

00:02:23.600 investment to accommodate growing enrollment but more needs to be done in fact for many school

00:02:30.960 authorities enrollment growth is far beyond original projections so i'm here today to announce

00:02:38.880 additional funding for our school divisions more specifically albertas conservatives are investing

00:02:45.760 an additional 30 million to our school boards across alberta alberta's government is committed

00:02:53.760 to keeping our education system world class and this investment will help us achieve that goal

00:03:02.480 i know this additional funding will help our school divisions in many ways first and foremost

00:03:08.480 every new student will be funded school authorities with any level of enrollment growth

00:03:16.240 will now be eligible under a new revised formula not just those experiencing significant growth

00:03:24.400 last year when we first introduced the supplemental enrollment growth grant

00:03:29.280 only those authorities with more than two percent growth were eligible as the grant was designed to

00:03:35.440 support school boards facing significant growth now all enrollment growth across the province will

00:03:43.440 be supported as every student enrolled beyond original school authority budget projections

00:03:50.880 will be funded under the revised methodology the current supplemental enrollment growth

00:03:57.440 grant will provide additional funding to school authorities based on the volume of enrollment

00:04:03.280 growth the grant provides school authorities with fifteen hundred dollars per student for growth

00:04:09.840 between zero and a hundred students of course and incremental enrollment growth exceeding

00:04:16.240 a hundred students will be funded at two thousand dollars per student

00:04:22.720 this influx of new funding will be available to our school boards as early as this december

00:04:28.960 so that our school authorities will be able to add additional supports immediately a final

00:04:35.120 allocation will be provided to schools authorities later in the school year once the department has

00:04:40.960 verified enrollment counts and enrollment levels i want to stress that this new funding complements

00:04:47.760 the historic education investment made in budget 23. that budget investment addresses rising

00:04:55.200 enrollment growth in schools meets students increasingly diverse needs and combats the

00:05:02.000 affordability and inflation crisis facing parents and school authorities the department of education's

00:05:08.960 operating expense is increasing by more than 1.8 billion over the next three years

00:05:17.280 this will help our school divisions hire up to 3 000 additional staff including teachers

00:05:23.040 educational assistance bus drivers and school support staff and with the additional investment

00:05:28.560 we're announcing today of 30 million we hope to increase that number further in fact according

00:05:35.280 to their own projections our school authorities right now are on track to hire more than 2600

00:05:42.480 additional teachers educational assistants and other support staff this year alone and again

00:05:48.640 with today's investment we hope to bolster those numbers over the next three years budget 23

00:05:55.600 allocated 820 million to address enrollment growth and this dollar amount of course now increasing

00:06:02.480 as per today's announcement this funding may be used to hire additional teachers

00:06:08.720 and classroom support staff so that our school authorities can manage class sizes

00:06:14.880 and the growing number of students they are seeing with a significant investment in budget 23 and

00:06:23.040 today's 30 million dollar investment of new funding i am confident that our school boards

00:06:30.240 and other partners will be able to have the resources and support that they need to ensure

00:06:36.800 our students continue to receive a world-class education thank you again and it's now my

00:06:43.520 pleasure to invite edmonton catholic school division board chair sandra palazzo to say

00:06:50.000 a few words please join me good morning everyone and thank you minister particularly your comments

00:07:01.520 regarding the exceptional work of our staff we would also like to thank principal sampson and

00:07:06.400 of course our staff and students for graciously hosting us today on behalf of edmonton catholic

00:07:12.480 schools board of trustees chief superintendent and administration it is my absolute pleasure

00:07:17.920 to welcome you to holy child catholic elementary school and of course to thank the honorable

00:07:23.200 minister of education demetrius nicolaitis for inviting us to provide remarks for this important

00:07:29.360 announcement this school is a perfect place for us to talk about enrollment growth not only because

00:07:37.520 of its cultural diversity which includes spanish and french programming but because it reflects

00:07:43.440 the diversity of our division's growing student population with the significant immigration to

00:07:49.920 canada over the past few years we've seen many families from across canada choosing alberta as

00:07:56.880 a place to live edmonton catholic schools has increased by over 4 500 students in the past

00:08:05.200 two years alone we estimate that of our new students more than 2 000 are new to canada

00:08:12.640 and more than 800 are new to the province this growth is in addition to the existing

00:08:18.960 families in edmonton who are choosing edmonton catholic schools as more and more people move

00:08:26.240 to alberta because of the many advantages and opportunities that our province offers

00:08:31.360 we're seeing metro school divisions grow at such a significant rate that the weighted moving average

00:08:37.600 is not meeting the demands faced by rapidly growing school divisions the supplemental

00:08:44.160 enrollment growth grant is a funding equalizer of sorts that helps offset the limitations of

00:08:50.880 the weighted moving average and we're extremely pleased for today's announcement and wish to thank

00:08:57.040 our minister and the alberta government for addressing our concerns and making student

00:09:02.480 learning a priority although we strive to accurately forecast our enrollment projections for

00:09:09.120 the year immigration and migration are often unpredictable by moving the two percent threshold

00:09:16.240 and recognizing each and every new student will receive more funding and be better able to manage

00:09:24.160 the demands of a growing population we're proud that every dollar we invest in our students and

00:09:30.880 schools is an investment in alberta's future we want the best for our province and are confident

00:09:37.120 that in an excellent well-funded education system it will get us there recognizing that supporting

00:09:44.320 the students of today will drive the economy of tomorrow the better we serve them the stronger

00:09:50.720 Alberta will be thank you good morning everyone that ends the formal portion of today's announcement

00:09:59.840 we will now open it up to questions it'll be one question and one follow-up we'll start with the

00:10:05.440 questions in the room here so if you can start with your name and your outlet hi question for

00:10:10.400 the minister morgan with global news i think you can't see me yet i'm back here hello uh just

00:10:16.160 wondering if you could elaborate obviously you're you're getting more support in the classroom but

00:10:20.000 But what about building new schools or getting students to schools that aren't yet at capacity?

00:10:24.800 What's going on there?

00:10:26.240 Yeah, absolutely.

00:10:27.380 On the last part of getting students to schools that are under capacity, of course, that's best left into the hands of our school divisions to manage the infrastructure that they have, provide busing and transportation.

00:10:41.580 There, of course, is increased costs with busing and fuel prices.

00:10:45.440 is we have provided assistance and support to our school divisions.

00:10:49.380 In Budget 23, as an example, we've increased the transportation funding envelope

00:10:53.940 by over 30% to help accommodate some of those increased financial pressures,

00:10:58.440 as well as others.

00:11:00.540 In terms of building schools, you know, we're working through that.

00:11:04.040 I hope to be able to have more to say when the Budget 24 is released.

00:11:09.540 Of course, every capital project has to go through a process,

00:11:13.640 to be evaluated scored and new projects are announced in in every budget cycle so budget 24

00:11:20.600 of course will be uh discussed and debated and hopefully eventually passed in the in the new year

00:11:26.280 in the spring you know the the mandate letter from the premier uh says specifically that we must work

00:11:32.280 to significantly expand the number of schools in our growing communities so i'll be working

00:11:37.240 specifically towards that and then edmonton public school boards posted its annual education results

00:11:42.040 report it shows a three-year high school completion rate for indigenous students at 44

00:11:47.240 and that's lower than last year and lower than the provincial average which is at 57 what's your

00:11:51.320 reaction to those numbers and how will you help yeah well you know i uh leave it within our school

00:11:56.680 divisions to to see how best to support their their students um and uh recognizing the diverse

00:12:03.320 needs of the different student populations that they have obviously we want to see those those

00:12:08.360 numbers move up and improve for indigenous learners and for all students so government may

00:12:14.840 remains ready and willing to help however however is needed best and happy to chat more with

00:12:22.440 Edmonton Catholic to see what we can do to help support them. Hi Janet French from the CBC my

00:12:30.120 questions are actually for sandra oh sure yeah sorry we get to see every day so no problem

00:12:36.680 uh for sandra um so we're whenever we ask the government about capital planning school

00:12:44.920 construction it's oh here's a list of all the schools that we've built in the past few years

00:12:49.000 and here's all the money we've poured into this but obviously enrollment is still jumping as you've

00:12:53.560 just alluded to and i'm trying to understand realistically how many new builds would your

00:12:59.320 division need in the next three years to get every student learning in an appropriate learning space

00:13:06.360 thank you for the question janet so the more schools we get uh the more accepting we will

00:13:11.560 be of them i guess what i can say to you is in 36 out of our 92 school buildings currently

00:13:17.640 every space is being utilized including our learning commons in some cases even our staff

00:13:22.520 rooms and they're being used for teaching and learning so it's impacting us in in several ways

00:13:28.040 Many of our families, of course, are settling in and around the Anthony Henday area drive.

00:13:33.560 And so many schools in these areas are at capacity or over capacity.

00:13:39.100 Can you describe for me in a little bit more detail what kinds of spaces students are learning in and how it affects the quality of their education?

00:13:48.880 Well, again, virtually every space that we're using in some of these schools is being utilized.

00:13:53.300 And as I've already indicated, we've had to oftentimes give up our learning commons, our staff rooms, our conference rooms, so it's been difficult.

00:14:01.960 But again, we look forward, pardon me, we look forward because the Alberta government, as the minister has indicated today, is looking at that.

00:14:09.760 We're having collaborative discussions with them, and we're hoping for capital and announcements to be made soon, and that we'll be able to alleviate some of the concerns that we're currently experiencing.

00:14:18.920 did we have another question in the room here perfect that actually didn't really answer my

00:14:25.920 question about i mean you've got seven schools just in year one of your capital plan do you need

00:14:29.740 all seven right now do you need everything in this capital absolutely well the more we get and

00:14:33.540 of course it takes three years so to once we get the full construction and announcement then it

00:14:38.480 takes us three years from the time of the announcement until the time that the schools

00:14:41.980 are actually built and so yes and we are desperate need in for three of them immediately uh and of

00:14:48.900 course the more that we get them the more we'll be able to alleviate the

00:14:51.720 concerns that we're going to be experiencing next year or the year after

00:14:54.720 that or the year after that but again it's a three-year time frame that that

00:14:59.560 we're looking at before the full construction is complete and the three

00:15:02.800 you need immediately or which ones the three would be Christ the King st.

00:15:06.840 Thomas Aquinas and Monsignor Fee Otterson those are the ones that we've had

00:15:10.220 parent engagement in thank you Amanda with CTV you can stay there my one more

00:15:20.600 for you I just want you to really put in perspective how today's announcement is

00:15:27.560 what kind of a need there is for the Catholic School Board and and what kind

00:15:33.140 of a difference this is truly going to make it is going to make a difference so

00:15:37.280 the information that was shared today we anticipate receiving 5.1 million dollars which is 1.9 million

00:15:44.720 more than the previous method of calculation that was used and so definitely this money is going to

00:15:50.400 be money that will go directly into the classrooms to support student learning and my follow-up is for

00:15:56.800 the minister minister i'd like to ask you about the defeat of bill 202 and why not

00:16:07.120 not support reporting the mandatory reporting of class sizes sure i had the opportunity to speak

00:16:14.080 towards bill 202 in the assembly my concerns with were with some of the components of the bill

00:16:19.840 specifically talked about establishing a teaching excellence commission if memory serves me correct

00:16:25.680 stipulated that that should be in place by december 31st of 2024 and that the the commission

00:16:31.440 should report back within two years so it would be you know two to potentially four years before

00:16:38.320 we received any kind of report back from this commission about any kind of details

00:16:42.560 um you know in in talking with edmonton catholic and other school divisions it's very clear that

00:16:47.840 we need to take additional steps immediately i don't know why we would want to wait several

00:16:52.160 years before getting a report to decide what to do our government's committed to taking action

00:16:57.040 immediately as we're doing today in terms of providing additional funding to our school

00:17:00.400 school divisions to help them hire teachers and other staff so that we can deal with some of the

00:17:04.260 enrollment pressures that we're facing. Perfect. Thank you to everybody that showed up in person. We'll

00:17:10.860 move to the first caller on the phone here. Hi there. This is a question for the minister.

00:17:22.600 Minister, over the weekend there was a contract vote for support staff employees of the Calgary

00:17:26.980 Board of Education, one of the highest turnouts in years. The contract was rejected by 70% of those

00:17:32.580 who voted. These workers haven't seen a wage increase since 2013. Some of them are working

00:17:37.480 below the poverty line. A lot of complexities now with increasing enrollment for sure here. Is there

00:17:42.480 any way the province can help support these workers? I know we're looking at hiring more of

00:17:46.480 these workers, but can we increase their wages? Is there anything the province can do in that

00:17:50.600 respect? Sure. When you say workers, are you referring to teachers or was that educational

00:17:56.100 assistance support support staff workers with the calgary board of education educational assistance

00:18:02.580 yes okay perfect yeah so uh we uh of course uh those those contracts are are facilitated through

00:18:09.460 the collective bargaining process and are negotiated with their employer which is the

00:18:13.700 school division directly um so i i don't want to comment on uh any active collective bargaining

00:18:20.260 conversations or or discussions that are happening where there with the employer being the calgary

00:18:25.860 school division directly um you know we're always uh looking to provide uh the adequate support to

00:18:31.780 our school divisions as we're doing today uh announcing 30 million in additional funding

00:18:36.660 to help support them and we we leave it to our school divisions to decide how best it is to

00:18:41.460 allocate those funding to deal that funding to deal with enrollment pressures uh or or in uh in

00:18:47.460 in wages and in other areas so uh it's government's uh work to and responsibility to partner with our

00:18:52.900 our school divisions, make sure they have the resources that they need, and those conversations

00:18:57.200 are best left to the school division to work through.

00:19:02.040 Just back to the $30 million, the additional $30 million, how much of that money will go

00:19:07.020 to Calgary, specifically, Calgary schools, if you're able to kind of break down that for us?

00:19:11.600 Yeah, I don't have the, I'd be happy to get the exact number and maybe follow up with

00:19:16.360 you afterwards. I don't have the exact number in front of me. We still need to do some final

00:19:20.180 calculations and get some final reporting in from our school divisions uh so i'd be happy to follow

00:19:24.740 up with you and my team can follow up with you to get you the the specific calgary number that

00:19:28.980 that we suspect will be the case we can move to the next caller here michael king global news

00:19:41.620 morning minister a follow-up on a colleague's previous question here since we're talking about

00:19:45.540 class size numbers the importance of tracking so the money gets to the right place why don't you

00:19:50.420 just make classified reports public again by addressing the concerns you have with bill 202

00:19:55.700 and just releasing those numbers sure well again i believe it's uh it's best to to provide the

00:20:01.620 resources to our school divisions and uh uh let them uh make the the best decisions as how best

00:20:07.700 to allocate those that funding and where best to go they know where the best place is to allocate

00:20:13.940 their operating dollars of course you may recall that we we had class size reporting in the province

00:20:21.460 for well over a decade and additional funding was provided to school divisions

00:20:27.860 in support of that reporting through the small class size grant to help reduce class sizes and

00:20:34.660 it was actually a report from the auditor general i believe it was in 2016 or 17 that reported after

00:20:40.340 over a decade of this reporting and this program being in place and several billion dollars being

00:20:46.980 allocated to the small class size grant that class sizes were no smaller uh in that at that time than

00:20:54.260 when the program had begun and so the government in 2019 made the decision to to move away from

00:21:00.340 the small class size program and just move that funding into operating funding for the school

00:21:05.540 divisions. We're also hearing about increased

00:21:10.580 enrollment when it comes to children with special needs. Some parents are telling us they have to

00:21:14.460 fight for resources and aids for their own children. What is being done to

00:21:18.520 address those concerns? Today's announcement of $30 million

00:21:22.680 in additional funding to our school divisions to help them hire additional

00:21:26.320 educational assistance and other staff that's going directly into our

00:21:30.440 classrooms. Again, it's I think best determined to our school divisions

00:21:34.680 to determine how best to allocate the new funds that we're providing to them, whether

00:21:37.940 that is to hire additional support staff, educational assistance, and help deal with

00:21:44.220 students that may have other learning challenges or disabilities, or hire additional staff.

00:21:49.560 So we're making steps today, providing new funding to our school divisions to help address

00:21:54.480 some of those challenges.

00:21:56.600 We've got time for one more question. Operator, if you could put in the next caller.

00:22:01.700 Lisa Johnson, Edmonton Journal.

00:22:04.680 hi thanks for taking my question this is for the minister and just to follow up

00:22:08.560 on that class size data questions from my colleagues there I'm wondering I mean

00:22:14.820 you you offered some numbers here that there an extra 30 million in

00:22:18.180 supplemental growth Sandra mentioned that this will mean an increase of 1.9

00:22:23.860 million more than than expected for evidence in Catholic but to Albertans

00:22:28.680 into parents reading that it's a pretty abstract number especially when we

00:22:32.940 don't have classified data across the province, and we can't see how that funding is making

00:22:39.780 a tangible difference.

00:22:41.640 I guess to put it in perspective, in other words, where's the accountability without

00:22:46.940 that data?

00:22:47.940 I mean, how can Albertans keep this government accountable?

00:22:50.720 You can say that you're adding more money, but how do Albertans know that you're not

00:22:55.000 just playing catch up with enrollment growth?

00:22:57.260 Yeah, thank you.

00:22:59.760 Important question, of course.

00:23:01.260 want to know and understand because you know we can stand here as government to talk about 30

00:23:05.660 million and uh you know provide some of these numbers but parents want to know what difference

00:23:09.340 that actually makes in the classroom well the difference that it'll make uh and of course again

00:23:13.900 school divisions will choose to use their funds in different ways so i don't want to speak for

00:23:17.980 all school divisions but i believe the difference it'll make will be um additional additional staff

00:23:24.140 uh you know as at the start of this school year alone uh we've seen over 1200 additional staff

00:23:30.700 with just our four metro school divisions join their ranks as teachers and educational assistants.

00:23:38.380 We're on track to see 2,600 additional educational staff, including teachers, be recruited by our

00:23:46.060 school divisions. So parents will be able to see that and I think that's the direct

00:23:51.180 tangible effect that parents will be able to see will be more support staff, more teachers

00:23:56.220 and other resources going to support their kids.

00:24:03.220 Do you have a follow-up?

00:24:07.220 Thanks.

00:24:08.220 Yeah, I'm wondering maybe for Sandra if you could shed some light on this.

00:24:14.220 You know, in debate in the legislature over Bill 202, Emily Dick mentioned that it would

00:24:20.220 keeping track of class sizes would add a lot of red tape and paperwork for school boards

00:24:27.240 without actually offering tangible help. I'm wondering if you could shed some light on how

00:24:32.240 many human hours it would take to estimate, to gather class size data in your division,

00:24:37.960 if that would be a hurdle for you. Well, you know, I wouldn't be able to give you an exact number,

00:24:44.320 but we could certainly give you a you know a fabricated one uh that being said um i just want

00:24:51.920 to attribute the great work that our division does uh in to ensuring that the data that we do

00:24:57.040 have that we're able to accommodate for the students in the best way possible of course with

00:25:02.080 today's announcement um it's a step in the right direction where we're going to continue to be able

00:25:06.960 to serve our students in the best way possible because that's why we're here and it's always

00:25:12.240 about wanting to give our students the best so uh we will you know i will certainly get our team to

00:25:17.760 give you that number should i be should be able to come up with one thank you and that's all the

00:25:23.360 time we have today thank you all for coming if you have any additional questions my email is

00:25:28.080 at the bottom of the news release

00:25:42.240 You

Western Standard - November 29, 2023

Supporting growing student enrolment in schools

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