School officials have productive meeting with Education minister

Rocky View Schools (RVS) officials had a productive meeting with Education minister Adriana LaGrange during her visit to the RancheView School on Sept. 16, says board chair Todd Brand.

Following a tour the school, the minister met with RVS trustees and officials for about an hour to discuss the needs of the division and briefly touched upon the recently released MacKinnon Report on Alberta's Finances.

RVS school board chair Brand says the bulk of the meeting centred upon needs of the division as outlined in an advocacy paper prepared by the division in late 2018. In a nutshell, that paper speaks to the funding framework, capital needs and creating an inclusive learning environment.

The group gathered for a photo before the tour began.

"A lot of the discussion focused on the capital needs for our schools," says Brand.  "We went through them fairly specifically so she could understand that our growth continues to be about the 1,000 students per year and we're not slowing down. We pretty much need two announcements of new schools a year and the opening of two new schools a year to keep pace with the growth."

To the dismay of school officials, the last provincial budget tabled in 2018 did not include any new schools for RVS. The number of modulars received as an interim measure also fell well short. The NDP government fell before the 2019 budget was tabled and the first Kenney budget isn't expected until late October.

The division also stressed the importance of receiving their full per-student funding, says Brand.

While many of these points were previously provided to the Education Minister in writing, Brand believes discussing them face-to-face was valuable.

"It's one thing to have a piece of paper with it listed and another thing to really be able to give some examples to it."

Upon the appointment of LaGrange as Education minister, division officials requested to meet her as soon as possible.

"She did respond to our letter and we got a chance to meet with her face-to-face," says Brand.  "We were pleased to have that opportunity."

School officials also expressed concern with the MacKinnon Report's comparison of education administration costs in Alberta and British Columbia. The report says Alberta spends 24.6 per cent of its education budget in these areas compared to 17 per cent in B.C.

Brand says it's like comparing apples to oranges.

"The numbers really aren't comparable because what we include under administration in Alberta schools is quite different than what B.C. puts in there," he says.

Brand praised the three MLAs who attended the meeting, saying they added value to the meeting.

Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie was one of those MLAs in attendance and was pleased to see LaGrange include the visit in her tour of Alberta schools.

"Angela Pitt  (Airdrie-East) and I met with the school board early on and really encouraged our minister to meet with the Rocky View board so they could bring their concerns forward," says Guthrie. "We were really happy she came to listen."

Guthrie says LaGrange is heading up an investigation on how additional educational funding provided by the previous government was utilized.

"We're looking at what happened with funding that went in from the NDP for classroom-size reduction that didn't do anything. It went into the education system and then just disappeared."

Guthrie says he isn't sure what will be included in the provincial budget being tabled in late October. Another one follows five months later.

"The time frame between budgets is small. I have no idea what this upcoming budget is going to look like, but I'm hopeful. I think the minister does understand the needs that we have here. But I would also say that I think this budget, because it's just a partial budget, might be just a measure to set the stage to moving forward ."

Other MLAs attending the meeting were Miranda Rosin (Banff-Kananaskis) and Angela Pitt (Airdrie-East).