New school funding formula coming
Former Cape Breton school boards disadvantaged by enrolment-based formula
The Minister of Education says a new formula for funding the province’s schools, which will be based more on needs than enrolment, will be in place for the next fiscal year.
In the aftermath of the dismantling of the province’s elected English-language school boards earlier this year, the coming school year will see the existing Hogg school funding formula remain in place, Zach Churchill told reporters Thursday in a post-cabinet scrum and conference call.
However, a new scheme will be in place for the school year beginning September 2019.
“We need to have a funding formula, I think, that takes into consideration the needs of our schools, the needs of our students from a learning perspective because that will allow us I think to have a greater impact on their success and their wellbeing,” Churchill said.
“While enrolment’s important, it’s not the only factor that we should be considering when we fund schools because we have a better understanding of learning needs of students now than we previously did.”
The former Cape Breton school boards, disadvantaged by the enrolment-based formula as they watched student numbers drop, had long called for funding to be based on programs.
The school board-based governance structure tied the province to the previous funding system, Churchill said.
Changing that model “opened up a brave new world for us,” he added, saying the province won’t necessarily have to be tied to any particular funding model. With independent school boards, it was necessary to rely on a formula, Churchill said.
That system resulted in student achievement differing from region to region, he added.
Under the school board system, it was clear the amount of provincial funding that was going into each region of the province. The funds allowed to each region will be disbursed through the regional centres for education.
As for whether that transparency will continue under the new centre for education model, Churchill said it will.
“Nothing will change in that regard,” he said.
Churchill said the government will use the intervening months to develop the new funding arrangement. The concept of needs includes items like behavioural and learning supports and the programming available in a given community, he said.
“We need to have time to figure out what are the top needs that we’re going to use to fund, where are the greatest pressures and how do we deliver funding in a way that is going to have the greatest impact on the greatest amount of students possible,” Churchill said.
Churchill has said under the new system school advisory councils will be given funding that they can direct into their own school communities and will be connected to regional offices through families of schools.
“We still would have to have some sort of formula to fund the independent entities that’s fair and consistent,” he said. “Now we can have a more global perspective on what the needs of the system are that’s not just based on region-to-region but that’s based on the overall needs of students in the province.”
Churchill said he couldn’t comment at this point on which parts of the province are likely to benefit from a redrawn funding formula.