Wildfire’s effects linger in classrooms
Fort McMurray schools are bracing for lower provincial test scores — and less money to help them bounce back — as school districts try to make up for months of missed lessons in the wake of last year’s wildfire.
At least 50 per cent of students enrolled in the Fort McMurray Public School District declined to enrol elsewhere to complete the 2015-16 school year after the townsite was evacuated on May 3, superintendent Doug Nicholls said. That meant at least 2,700 public school students missed one-fifth of the year.
“Obviously, the teachers are very concerned about their students,” Nicholls said.
Teachers have told administrators that students’ academic performance has suffered and to expect lower results in provincial achievement tests and diploma exams this spring.
Likewise, the Fort McMurray Catholic School District estimates half of the 6,143 students enrolled last year did not return to a classroom until September, and predicts a similar academic slide.
“It’s not just the fact that two months of school was missed that could lead to a possible decline in test scores,” school district spokeswoman Megan McKenny said in an email. “There is the fact that many students are still living with the stress of rebuilding their homes, or not being home yet.”
Nicholls said it could take two to three years for students to rebound from the collective hit to their academics. Schools are attempting to catch up using a voluntary program where teachers tutor more than 500 students after school and on weekends. The district is paying teachers overtime with a donation from the Royal Canadian Legion.
At Catholic high schools, extra help is available on the Fridays when there are no regular classes, McKenny said.
Because some families chose not to return to Fort McMurray, school enrolment dropped. Catholic and public schools collectively lost nearly 600 students compared to last year, with the Catholics experiencing a seven-per-cent decline, and public system seeing a fourper-cent drop.
With provincial funding tied to the number of students enrolled, fewer students in desks meant a financial hit for the districts.
The Catholic district expects to hire fewer new teachers next year and reduce some teaching and educational assistant positions through attrition after the district lost nearly six per cent of its funding this year. Although the education ministry gave the Catholic school district a one-time grant of $2.3 million to help offset the $4.5-million loss, there’s no financial cushion for the coming year, McKenny said.
Likewise, the public school board’s enrolment drop prompted a 3.4-per-cent drop in provincial funding, according to education ministry data. Despite $1.8 million extra to help soften the blow, the district is on track for a $4-million deficit this year, Nicholls said.
The funding dip comes at a time the public district is spending more on emotional and academic supports for students, he said.
“This is not a normal situation for anyone in Canada at this size, this scale — with all due respect to the situation in Slave Lake and the floods in southern Alberta. This was an entire community evacuated. There are so many different impacts in many different ways,” Nicholls said.
Neither school board has publicly reviewed or approved a budget for the 2017-18 school year. Nicholls expects it to be “challenging.”
Among financial pressures for both boards are decisions to reopen schools in Beacon Hill and Abasand, despite a marked decrease in the number of students anticipated.
Catholic and public schools in Beacon Hill, and Catholic and francophone schools in the Abasand neighbourhood were all shuttered last fall after sustaining damage.
The Catholic district wrestled with the decision to reopen Father Beauregard School in Abasand, where potentially hazardous construction is ubiquitous, and most students have yet to return to the neighbourhood, said superintendent George McGuigan.
“(Parents) were loud and clear — they wanted their school open,” he said. Although he acknowledges it’s a money-losing decision, he said it’s the right thing to do to revitalize a neighbourhood destroyed by fire.
On April 18, another 125 students returned to Abasand’s École Boréal, which is a francophone school operated by Edmonton-based Conseil Scolaire Centre-Nord.
The public district estimates school cleanup and repairs after the wildfire cost $60 million, and the Catholic district estimates it incurred at least $40 million in restoration costs. All were covered by insurance.