Public school board rejects performance-based funding

Tying school funding to students’ performance has no support from Edmonton’s public school trustees.

School board chairwoman Trisha Estabrooks said Tuesday said the board opposes a blue-ribbon panel recommendation to link performance measures with funding, which was contained in last week’s Mackinnon report examining provincial government spending.

The panel, led by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice Mackinnon, recommended the Alberta government scale back public spending and examine systemic changes in health and K-12 and post-secondary education.

It said the K-12 funding formula should accommodate growing school enrolments in the province, but shouldn’t rely solely on student counts to determine how to allot money to school boards.

“You think about the vulnerable populations we serve in all of our schools,” Estabrooks said. “To tie the funding that individual schools or students receive based on how well they do in the classrooms — that is a far cry from the core principle at Edmonton public, which is equity.”

For years, Alberta school trustees have lobbied for changes to the complex formula Alberta Education uses to allocate money to the province’s 61 school boards, saying it penalizes sprawling divisions with declining enrolments.

The United Conservative Party government has yet to say which, if any, of the panel’s recommendations it intends to act upon.

NUTRITION PROGRAM NEEDS TO BE FED

Although the Edmonton public school board had assumed provincial funding would continue for a school nutrition program under a new government, Estabrooks was glad to hear Monday the division would receive $1.2 million to keep the program running in 22 Edmonton public schools.

“We would have liked to have that certainty earlier,” she said. “That is an enormous relief to teachers who are again on the front lines of poverty every day in our schools.”

The now-$15.5-million program that feeds an estimated 35,000 Alberta students one meal a day began in 2016 under the NDP government, then expanded each year. After some uncertainty, Education Minister Adriana Lagrange said Monday the program will continue for the current school year.

NDP education critic Sarah Hoffman said Tuesday it was “ridiculous” it took government until the second week of the school year to say the money would come. Meanwhile, some schools had begun fundraising to keep their meal programs afloat.

Hoffman wants government to make the program permanent.

“We need to make sure that it is a foundational belief, that if hungry children come to school, that they get the support they need so they can focus on their learning,” she said.

Colin Aitchison, Lagrange’s press secretary, said Tuesday the minister confirmed the funding to school boards as soon as she could. The decision required approval from the treasury board, he said. The government is expected to introduce a provincial budget in October.

An administrative report to the board on Tuesday said the nutrition program has brought fresh, healthy foods into schools, generated a sense of community, taught children about making healthy eating choices and improved attendance, among other benefits.