An enrolment update shared during the Rocky View Schools (RVS) Board meeting on Feb. 13 discussed how Alberta Education's weighted-moving-average (WMA) funding model negatively impacts fast-growing public school division like RVS.
At the end of September 2024 enrolment in RVS was 29,243, likely rising to 29,481 by the end of January 2025. That’s a difference of an additional 245 students which are not currently being funded by the Province, and those 245 students are then only funded in the next school year, leaving RVS to pick up the difference from its own badly stretched coffers.
According to the report presented to the board, this school year is seeing similar overall in-year growth as the past two years.
From Sept. 2022 to Jan. 2023 school year, there was an increase of 221 students. Whereas, from Sept. 2023 to Jan. 2024, there was an increase of 245 students, making this a multi-year, compounding problem.
An additional problem, according to the report presented to the RVS board, is usually teachers are allocated to schools based on their size in September of each year. Therefore, when new students come into the schools during the school year, class sizes often get revisited.
These new students are also not spread out evenly among RVS; leaving certain schools where the pressure is felt much more than in others.
This leads to ongoing adjustments such as in-school shuffling, which are typically managed by school principals. High school principals, in particular, set aside a portion of their budget at the start of the year to ensure they have financial support available when an influx of new students arrives later in the year, helping to address any challenges that arise.
Some schools such as W.H. Croxford in the RVS division doesn't have the capacity for more staff to cater to the newly enroled students. The lack of space is a serious issue some schools continue to experience.
Premier Danielle Smith’s provincial government doesn’t provide grants of any kind for students who move into a school in Alberta after Sept. 30 of each year.
What creates challenges and disadvantages for growing school divisions, such as RVS, is the need to find additional funds for hundreds of students each year without any additional provincial government support.
While the Province has indicated it is reviewing the provincial funding model, the RVS board believes a new funding model must be rooted in the principle of every student being fully funded every year.
“They still have not covered what we need to spend in order to support students, teachers and staff, and that's because of this weighted-moving-average that we experience in the funding model for education,” said Fiona Gilbert, Board of Trustees chair for Rocky View Schools.
She added that RVS is experiencing the full impact of the three-year weighted impact of the current funding model, and not in a positive way.
