Trustees push for single public school system
Escalating financial, social and educational costs should prompt Albertans to ask for one publicly funded school system, an association of public school trustees said Thursday.
The duplication of services and administration in public and Catholic schools across the province is inefficient and divides communities, leaders of the Public School Boards Association of Alberta (PS BAA) said as they launched a campaign they hope sparks discussion.
“If enough people say this is important, political parties will start to pay attention to the issue, and move forward on it,” said past Calgary Board of Education chairwoman Pat Cochrane, who is leading the Together for Students campaign.
In the Alberta Act of 1905, Catholics have a constitutional right to establish separate schools. The province would have to seek federal approval for a constitutional amendment to change that.
In the 2017-18 school year, 67 per cent of Alberta students were enrolled in public schools, 23 per cent were enrolled in Catholic schools, and the remainder attended private, charter, francophone, First Nation or other schools, according to Alberta Education data.
SPLIT SYSTEM DECREASES CHOICES, TRUSTEES SAY
While urban school boards have battled publicly about whether they ’d save money by sharing more school buses, some rural boards say running parallel public and Catholic school systems affects the quality and accessibility of education.
The Aspen View school board, for example, is worried about Lakeland Catholic Schools’ desire to build a new school in the Town of Smoky Lake. Aspen View board chairman Dennis MacNeil said in a February interview the public school in Smoky Lake is in terrible shape and needs replacement. Declining enrolment has led them to offer some high-school classes, like sciences and calculus, online.
Building a new Catholic school in the same town would put both schools at risk, he said.
“Neither one would be viable in terms of being able to sustain itself,” he said.
In Drayton Valley, two high schools compete for students — one public, and one Catholic, Wild Rose school board chairman Russ Hickman said.
With enrolment dropping, and provincial funding tied to enrolment, many rural schools are struggling to provide all the prerequisites students need to continue on to post-secondary education or trades, he said. Frank Maddock public high school in Drayton Valley offers some classes every other year, and some teachers are leading classes in subjects outside their expertise, he said.
“It’s time to blow the dust off a 100-year-old education model that supports multiple school systems with duplicated, and inefficient services and come together for students,” Hickman said.
Although a campaign manager said the PSBAA had a contractor report on potential cost savings of amalgamating the systems, the organization did not make that report available Thursday.
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AND PROGRAMS NOT THE SAME
The Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association is open to conversations about collaboration, but trustees draw the line at protecting the advantages they have as Catholics, association president Serena Shaw said in a Thursday interview.
“What’s not on the table is our denominational right to exist. I think that parents and taxpayers have clearly chosen that that’s what they want,” Shaw said.
The Catholic association is not interested in one public school system, she said. Offering Catholic programs within a public school isn’t the same as having a Catholic school system, she said.
Shaw has not heard rural Catholic trustees say they are competing with public schools for limited funding. She said there’s a connection between the school choices available in Alberta and the provincial education system being one of the best in the world.
“I’m not understanding why we would want to try and change that,” Shaw said. “I don’t know what we could be wanting to achieve beyond that.”