File photo of a sign outside of the Lethbridge School Division office (Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Budget 2021 reaction: Lethbridge School Division and Alberta Teachers’ Association

Feb 26, 2021 | 11:50 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Alberta’s Finance Minister Travis Toews unveiled the government’s latest budget on Thursday.

The Lethbridge School Division and Alberta Teachers’ Association have since responded.

LETHBRIDGE SCHOOL DIVISION

The Lethbridge School Division noted that they will have more concrete details in March when they receive their funding profile from the province.

“Lethbridge School Division is pleased the Government of Alberta is putting education as a top priority by maintaining education spending at $8.3 billion for the upcoming school year,” read a statement issued by the Division on Thursday, following the budget address.

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“Although we do not know details and can’t comment on allocations to our Division specifically, we are encouraged the province sees the need for COVID-19 mitigation funding. The Division also looks forward to learning more in regard to the additional $40 million allocated to the Learning Support Funding envelope.”

Specifics on how the 2021/2022 budget will impact the Lethbridge School Division will become clearer near the end of March.

ALBERTA TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION

President of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA), Jason Schilling says “the devil will be in the details for education funding” in the 2021/2022 school year.

As mentioned by the Lethbridge School Division, the province will not be releasing school jurisdiction funding profiles or next year’s funding manual until the end of March.

Schilling’s statement can be read in full below:

“The exact impacts of this budget for the next school year are unclear, because the government is not releasing details of funding for school boards until the end of March.

We are concerned that the government may be obscuring the reality of school board funding by conflating government fiscal years with school board fiscal years while delaying the release of the details by over a month.

We appreciate that the government is planning to hold school board’s harmless for lower enrolment this year as a result of COVID-19, but again the details of this are unclear until school board funding is announced.

We are concerned that budget documents show $27 million less in expenditures on instruction in Budget 2021, while private schools see an increase of $20 million in funding.

Next year public education will continue to experience cost pressures as enrolment is expected to grow again, new curriculum will be piloted and COVID will still be impacting classrooms, but we’re not sure the funding will be there to support these challenges.”

Schilling said the ATA will provide a full response to school board funding allocations when they’re released next month. The ATA is the professional organization of teachers and consists of around 46,000 members.

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