Alberta will implement a new K–12 school funding model in response to rising

Alberta will implement a new K–12 school funding model in response to rising enrollment number.
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Following years of criticism, Alberta Education pledged to adjust the province's K–12 public and Catholic school funding to take into consideration the growing number of school boards.

Demetrios Nicolaides, the minister of education, told CBC News that the government wants to finalize a new funding formula by the time the 2025 budget is presented.

"We're having those conversations right now and I'm confident we'll be able to find a model that better suits everybody's needs," Nicolaides said.




Weighted moving average (WMA) financing has been distributed to schools since September 2020. The purpose of this program is to provide school boards with a fixed amount of money each year, even in the face of fluctuating enrollment or other budget requirements.

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Twenty percent of school funding under WMA is determined by the previous year's enrollment, and thirty percent is provided based on the enrolment for the current year.

The anticipated number of students for the upcoming academic year determines the remaining 50%.

The president of the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA), Jason Schilling, is among the critics of the funding scheme. They claim that because funding is based on a cumulative three-year period, newly enrolled students are essentially left underfunded until their third year of enrollment.
The way we should look at how this works is by funding children [from] the time they enter the school until they graduate from high school," Schilling added.


"There is no doubt that this formula has to be revised. Everyone in the province, from the top to the bottom, agrees that this needs to be looked at. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me that it's occurring today.

According to Nicolaides, one reason the ministry is looking into updating the model is the rise in enrollment across the province. Another is that in order to be certain that WMA wasn't functioning, the ministry needed to give it ample time to run.

According to Nicolaides, the pandemic produced a sharp drop in enrolment numbers throughout the province the year WMA was implemented, which was followed by a period of fast growth.

"So we've been able to see the model operate in a number of different scenarios," he explained.

"And there's been that recognition that for school divisions who are seeing some significant growth and maybe need some faster access to financial resources, that we might need to look at a different approach."
Nicolaides went on to say that although WMA can help smaller, rural schools who are losing students to some extent, he acknowledges that the formula is not perfect for schools that are growing quickly, especially in cities.

According to Schilling, the effects of WMA on school divisions in rural areas might not be as obvious.

"WMA was supposed to help sort of soften the blow for rural boards who were losing students, but funding comes in different envelopes, and the boards can't move the money around like they were able to in the past," Schilling said.

According to him, the system will continue to be underfunded if schools that have been facing a decline in enrollment suddenly see a spike in enrollment.
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All of a sudden, they lack the personnel and the initiatives to help those kids
The Calgary Board of Education (CBE) chair, Patricia Bolger, stated that WMA has not been able to keep up with the rate of enrollment the school division has seen recently, leading to a budget shortfall that amounts to millions of dollars.

According to Bolger, any new funding model developed by Alberta Education must result in an increase in the overall budget allocated to schools.

"We need more dollars to our public school boards to go into the classrooms," she stated.

"We are really dealing with the effects of inflation and student enrolment and then complexity within our schools, which requires, of course, additional supports."

Helping the approximately 40% of students at the CBE who speak English as their second language is one of those challenges.
Bolger described them as Additional Language Learners (EAL).

Following Premier Danielle Smith's announcement that $8.6 billion will be invested in building new schools over the next three years, the province is reexamining WMA.


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