Alberta education minister calls investment for more staff sufficient

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Alberta is investing $1.1 billion to hire more education staff, a welcomed investment for stakeholders amid criticism of the province’s handling of enrolment pressures on school boards.

Over the next three years the province has pledged to invest $1.1 billion to hire 4,000 more education staff across the province. The investment is part of the $9.88 billion in Budget 2025 being put towards education, which the province has called a “record” investment for the sector.

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In an interview with Postmedia, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he believes hiring 4,000 education staff will be sufficient over the next three years, despite the Alberta Teachers’ Association previously saying that there needs to be 5,000 teachers in schools right now to meet the enrolment pressures.

“I think it will be sufficient. It’s an aggressive number,” Nicolaides said.

“Enrolment levels fluctuate from year to year, so we’ll continue to evaluate what the enrolment levels look like and make changes to our plans if we see things changing outside of our expectations, but we do expect enrolment levels to subside a little bit over the next few years. We’re confident that those figures will help make a significant impact.”

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Nicolaides said there is currently no plan to put a cap on classroom sizes, instead pointing to the $1.6 billion classroom complexity funding, a grant school boards can apply for and use to hire more educational assistants and other specialized staff.

Two years instead of three

In Budget 2025 the province changed the weighted moving average (WMA) which will now be based on two years of enrolment data instead of three.

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The two-year allocation method will use the current year at 30 per cent and the projected year at 70 per cent. If applied to the next school year, 70 per cent of the funding will be based on projections for the 2025-2026 enrolment and 30 per cent for the 2024-2025 school year enrolment.

The province is investing $55 million toward the funding formula for 2025-2026 and $94 million added in each of the following two years.

Sandra Palazzo, board chairwoman of Edmonton Catholic Schools, said she has been advocating for a return to per-student funding, but said the changes to the WMA will provide stability the board is looking for.

“Is it ever enough money? I come as a teacher, an administrator, an educator. I know that the more money we receive, the more money we can spend, and we can certainly find places for it,” Palazzo said.

Marilyn Dennis, president of the Alberta School Boards Association, said the association realized fairly early on that the WMA was not serving boards dealing with significant enrolment increases, stating the funding would “lag behind” but did offer support for boards that had either flat or declining enrolment.

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“Now with the two-year rolling average rather than three, we see that potentially there will be some improvement in terms of meeting the needs of those boards that have particular enrolment challenges with fast growing enrolment,” Dennis said.

CUPE support staff on strike for nine weeks

Thousands of education support staff represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are on their ninth week of job action with a deal yet to be made between school boards and the union.

When asked what is the province’s plan to address the current striking workers amidst plans to hire more staff, Nicolaides said the government does not negotiate with CUPE and encouraged both parties to return to the negotiating table.

“These are highly rewarding jobs and highly rewarding careers,” Nicolaides said at a Wednesday press conference.

“A vast majority, if not every single educator, teacher, educational assistant or other individual that’s working in our school settings is there because they really love what they’re doing and want to be able to support those individuals and to support those children.”

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Alberta NDP education critic Amanda Chapman said class sizes are “ballooning” across the province. She added that the province had failed to hire the number of teachers they’d set as a goal last year.

“It’s clear that this government doesn’t prioritize class sizes. Certainly, they don’t do any kind of public reporting on class sizes or complexity. So, that might be a path for teachers to follow. But of course, we’d want to consult with teachers first before making a commitment to that,” Chapman said.

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