Public board slashes 611 positions, warns of further cuts in the future

The Edmonton Public School board approved changes to next school year’s budget, including permanent layoffs, at a virtual board meeting Tuesday and suggested more cuts are yet to come.

Out of more than 9,000 full-time equivalent staff employed last year, 611 full-time positions will be cut, including 429 educational assistants.

“Those are 611 full-time equivalents or positions that will no longer be in our schools, in our classrooms, supporting students,” said board chair Trisha Estabrooks in an interview after the board meeting.

Estabrooks added there will be more difficult decisions and cuts on the horizon, but the biggest concern for the board was that the budget would affect supports for vulnerable kids.

“When you continue to squeeze, what’s affected are the classrooms,” she said.

In April, the division temporarily laid of 1,868 support and custodial staff following a $17.5-million re-allocation of funding by the province due to COVID-19 closures.

With the provincial education budget relatively frozen at about $8.2 billion per year for the next three years, the board expressed serious concerns over how COVID-19, the province’s new funding model, and changes to Program Unit Funding will affect students.

The division’s total revenue is estimated at $1.19 billion, but it expects enrolment growth in the 2020-21 school year to be 2.3 per cent, or 2,422 new students.

That means a total of just more than 107,000 students are projected to enrol next year, while funding will be based on approximately 105,000 students, according to a report from Todd Burnstad, the division’s chief financial officer.

The division is also looking to spend $4 million to develop online resources to adapt to COVID-19.

With approximately 80 per cent of funding devoted to staffing, any funding squeeze will have a direct effect on jobs, said Burnstad.

And the weighted moving average, counting enrolment over three years, disadvantages growing school divisions, said superintendent Darrel Robertson.

That spoke to a fundamental unfairness, said Ward F trustee Michael Janz.

“I don’t know how else to describe it (other) than, ‘I’m angry.’ This allocation is unfair to the students, the staff and the families of Edmonton,” said Janz, who argued the board needed to vote against administration’s proposed budget and demand a fair deal from the province.

“We have a province that’s been whipped up into a fervour about going to Ottawa and getting a fair deal for Alberta. Well, we need to go to our families (in) every single school and say, we need a fair deal for Edmonton public schools.”

Funding changes will also disproportionately affect vulnerable kids, said Ward H trustee Nathan Ip. “This really worries me, not just this year — but the cumulative impact over time. We will see a greater social cost over time than to actually make these investments (now).”

The board also agreed to push the education ministry to clarify what its plan was to fill the potential gaps in early intervention as a result of funding changes to PUF. The changes mean that children in kindergarten no longer qualify for PUF, and it’s not clear if they will have access to the same amount of funding through a new grant, according to a board report. Currently, 1,040 children qualify, but under the new model, it will be 440 fewer, at approximately 600.

“It is gut-wrenching to see such a dramatic reduction in funding,” said Ward C trustee Shelagh Dunn.

Ward G trustee Bridget Stirling echoed concerns over funding for supports for students with complex needs, and suggested the board would eventually need to re-evaluate its priorities.

“We don’t have a mental health therapist or social worker in schools. I think at some point we are going to have to talk about why we have a (school police resource officer) and not a mental health therapist in schools,” she said.

Stirling put forward a request for information about the details and costs of the school resource officer program that has been in place in Edmonton schools since 1979 at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

She said she has heard concern about the program from parents, teachers, current and former students, and lawyers — including some worried about whether students are being targeted because of their race or culture.