PBSAA wants to see Sask. ruling over funding for non-Catholic students in Catholic schools extended to Alberta
The Public School Board Association of Alberta has applied to the courts for intervener status, as the Saskatchewan government gets set to appeal a recent Court of Queen’s Bench decision stating non-Catholic students should not get public funding in Catholic Schools.
PSBAA vice president Rick Massini says public schools in Alberta wanted their voices heard loud and clear in this case.
“We have been trying, for as long as I have been with the PSBAA, to work with the ministry (of Education) to establish some guidelines to make (the education system) more co-operative and less competitive. The same thing which happened in Theodore is happening here.”
Massini is referring to the background of the Court of Queen’s Bench case, which had Good Spirit Public School Division challenge the legality of a decision by Christ the Teacher Catholic School Division to take in former public school students into its school in Theodore, and receive funding from Saskatchewan Education, after the decision was made to close the local public school and move students up the road to another nearby community due to low enrolment.
“If the province has the notion there should be equity of learning across the province for all students, these expansions and establishments in rural areas are contrary to that,” states Massini. “We are trying to ensure public education is alive and well in the province, particularly in smaller, rural areas.
“The thing of it is,” continues Massini, “the rights guaranteed in the constitution are very specific. Over the years, there have been some assumed rights (by separate schools) that are not guaranteed in the constitution. That has led to the problems we are facing today.”
Massini says the current state of affairs cannot continue because, in effect, it sets up two competing public school systems. He asserts denominational schools are intended for students within that denomination, not for public school students. Massini is hopeful the Court of Appeal in Saskatchewan upholds the Court of Queen’s Bench decision when the case comes up for consideration, and rules public money should not go to fund non-Catholic students in Catholic schools. “Right now public schools lose on two counts. They lose the per student funding that goes along with those students, but more importantly they are left with greater percentages of students with learning disabilities, which compounds the (funding) problem we are trying to deal with ... Public schools are being challenged to the limit ... The lower cost students are being siphoned out of the public system into separate, charter, Francophone and home schools, and the public system is left with higher needs, more expensive students to deal with.”
Note: The Court of Queen’s Bench does not have any impact on the way education is funded in Alberta at the moment, but may one day when the decision is eventually appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.