Alberta Announces $215 Million Injection for School Boards, Modular Classrooms Amid Population Boom

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides stand together during the swearing in of her cabinet in Edmonton, June 9, 2023. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

Alberta’s government has announced an additional $215 million for school boards to hire more teachers and support staff as a record number of students are expected to fill provincial schools.

Premier Danielle Smith said some of the funding will also go towards building 100 additional modular classrooms, expecting to add 2,500 more student spaces.

“Alberta schools expect to welcome a historic number of additional students. We know that unprecedented enrolment growth, declines, rising operational costs are creating real challenges in our schools,” the premier said during a July 23 news conference at Ernest Manning High School in Calgary.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said $125 million would go directly to school boards around the province. Metropolitan areas experiencing the largest enrolment increases, Calgary and Edmonton, will see $9.7 million going to the Calgary Catholic School Board, $10.5 million to the Edmonton Catholic School Board, $22.4 million to the Edmonton Public School Board, and $31.6 million to the Calgary Board of Education.

“We don’t typically announce additional funding outside of the budget cycle, but continued growth in the system beyond the regional projections, along with rising cost pressures, requires action now so that our school authorities can plan for the upcoming school year, and our government is committed to taking steps when needed,” he said during the conference.

Every school board in the province will be getting a share of the $125 million, according to a government news release. The amount will depend on how many students are enrolled in each school authority, the release said.

Calgary’s Board of Education chair, Patricia Bolger, said that 150 schools under the board’s authority are at capacity.

“Over the past three years, we have welcomed more than 15,000 additional students and expect to enrol another 8,000 students this fall. Together, these increases are enough to fill more than 38 new elementary schools,” she said during the conference.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) but did not hear back by publication time.

In a June 19 post on the ATA website, the organization noted that 24 of the provincial school divisions were eliminating teacher jobs despite high student enrolment.

More than 250 teaching positions were being eliminated, according to the ATA, for one board that equated to a cut of 15 percent of its teaching staff.

Modular Classrooms

A total of $90 million in funding will be directed towards the building of 100 modular classrooms and the relocation of 50 current modulars to “high priority” areas, Mr. Nicolaides said.

“The new modulars will provide an additional 2,500 student spaces, and the relocated spaces will transfer up to 1,200 student spaces to our fastest growing communities.”

Edmonton schools will see 43 new modulars added, Rocky View schools will receive 12 new modular classrooms, and Calgary will get 45 new modulars, the education minister said.

“Our supplier has already begun work on building these new modulars, and we anticipate all 100 to be ready by the end of December, with some arriving at school sites as early as this September,” he said during the conference. “The relocation of the 50 modular classroom units will begin immediately with the attempts of these being in place at the start of the school year.”

The latest $215 million funding boost is in addition to $2.1 billion in capital funding over three years allocated to building new schools listed in the government’s 2024 budget.