Alberta to move toward new funding model for K-12 schools in light of increasing enrollment numbers

After years of criticism, Alberta Education has committed to change the way it funds K-12 public and catholic schools in the province to account for school boards that continue to grow. 

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides confirmed to CBC News that the ministry is hoping to nail down a new funding formula in time for the 2025 budget. 

"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," said Nicolaides.

Since September 2020, funding has been allocated to schools based on the weighted moving average (WMA) — a scheme designed to offer a predictable amount of money for school boards to work with amid changing levels of enrolment or other funding needs year-to-year. 

Under WMA, 20 per cent of school funding is based on enrolment numbers for the past year, and a further 30 per cent is awarded based on the current years' enrolment. 

The remaining 50 per cent is based on projected enrolment for the next school year. 

Critics of the funding model, including Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA), say that because funding is determined by a cumulative three-year period, new students entering schools are effectively left underfunded until their third year of enrolment. 

"We need to fund kids [from] the moment they walk into the school to the moment they graduate from high school, and that's the way that we need to look at how this works," said Schilling. 

"A revision of this formula is definitely needed for sure…. Everybody from the top of the province to the bottom of the province are saying that this needs to be examined. So I'm not surprised to see that it's happening now."

Nicolaides said the growth in enrolment numbers across the province is one factor that has spurred the ministry to look into revising the model. Another is that the ministry wanted to give WMA enough operational time to be sure that it wasn't working. 

The pandemic caused enrolment numbers to decline significantly across the province the year WMA was instituted, said Nicolaides, which was then followed by a period of rapid growth.

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

"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 added that while WMA can give a degree of sustainability to smaller rural schools that are experiencing declining enrolment, for schools experiencing rapid growth, particularly in urban areas, he recognizes that the formula has shortcomings.