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By Curtis Galbraith

Schools

Three of 13 school divisions facing budget cuts located in the Peace

May 25, 2024 | 7:00 AM

Three of the 13 school divisions the Alberta Teacher’s Association says will be seeing funding cuts from the province, are located in the Peace.

An email from the ATA says the Peace Wapiti Public School Division will see a reduction of $339,760, or 0.4 per cent.

The Holy Family Catholic Regional Division is looking at a $221,112 reduction, or 0.9 per cent.

The Northwest Francophone Education Region will see a $34,316 cut, also 0.4 per cent of its budget.

The cuts would take effect for the 2024-25 school year.

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The ATA says it is worried that this will mean fewer programs and larger class sizes.

“There is no excuse in our growing, wealthy province to have funding cuts for public education. Year after year after year, school board funding has failed to keep up with inflation and enrolment growth and as a result, we now have the lowest per-pupil spending on education in all of Canada,” says ATA president Jason Schilling in that same email.

Schilling says he is hearing from teachers in many divisions, not just the ones facing cuts, that they are worried teachers will be laid off at the end of the school year.

He says this contradicts recent government announcements of plans to hire 3,000 school staff over three years.

Schilling is calling on the province to add more funding for the coming school year and for school boards to end any plans to lay off staff.