Public schools urged to expose budget shortfalls
As the province issues end-of-year news releases touting increased education funding, a parent advocacy group is looking to collect data from schools that continue to be challenged by limited resources and increasingly complex classrooms.
Support Our Students is inviting all publicly funded schools in Alberta to participate in its second annual Alberta Schools Survey, sending out as many as 1,700 emails over the past month.
Principals are being asked to fill out the anonymous surveys asking how they balance tight school budgets, which often force them to choose between special-needs assistants, school psychologists, librarians, music teachers or increased janitorial services.
SOS spokeswoman Barb Silva is hoping to collect responses from schools across the province after students return to classes in the new year.
“Principals have very difficult decisions to make with very limited amounts of money,” Silva said.
“We need them to provide us with this critical information so we have something to arm ourselves with when we go to the minister.”
The provincial government issued news releases this week detailing funding to various departments, including Alberta Education, highlighting the reduction of school fees, investing $3.5 million into school nutrition programs and announcing 50 new school and modernization projects, which created 36,000 new student spaces provincewide.
“One of the most important investments we can make in the future of our province is investing in our children’s education,” said Education Minister David Eggen.
But Silva says inequality of resources is still a harsh reality, leaving schools in low-income areas behind those in high-income areas where parent volunteers do more fundraising, creating have and have-not environments.
“Our funding model is broken. We need a new model and we need a new vision,” she said.
Silva added that the public needs to start asking questions such as why, for instance, private schools continue to receive public money while students in public schools don’t always have access to specialneeds supports, psychologists or speech pathologists.
“We need to recognize public education as something citizens value and support for the overall greater good.”
Last year, the first time the survey was conducted, principals voiced serious concerns around limited funding and not being able to meet student needs, particularly kids facing stress and poverty at home or those challenged by special learning needs.
The first of its kind in Alberta, entitled Levelling the Playing Field: A Comprehensive Resource Audit of Alberta Schools, the April 2017 report found principals expressed an alarming level of worry for student mental health and limited resources to help them.
The survey, conducted over a three-week period in the fall of 2016, showed 52 per cent of respondents reported having no special education teachers, 70 per cent reported having no librarians, 45 per cent reported having no physical education teachers and 58 per cent reported having no nurse available for students.
Within that survey, principals — some of whom defied direction by their district not to respond — painted a picture of stress, anxiety, drug use and self-harm among students, as well as families struggling in an unrelenting economic downturn.
Examples of direct quotes pulled from principal responses included:
“More kids are coming to school with ADHD, diagnosed and not yet diagnosed, anxiety disorders, psychological effects from … abuse, trauma and other family issues. Kids are exposed to, and are even doing, drugs at an alarming rate.”
“Kids are suicidal and self-harming … we could easily employ a counsellor two to three days per week. Yet, educational assistants are being cut back more and more.”
“I have parents coming to me in tears not sure how they are going to feed their kids, or clothe them for winter … kids are dealing with more and more, but are receiving less and less help.”
Silva said that she expects more similar responses from this year’s survey and plans to take that information to the province in the spring, asking for a new vision and a new funding model for public education.