CAPE super says funding increase keeps up with enrolment
By Medicine Hat News on November 26, 2019.
The Centre for Academic Performance and Excellence’s superintendent says a small increase in funding for charter and other alternative schools will help CAPE keep up with enrolment growth. The Oct. 24 budget allocated $400 million to homeschooling, charter, private and alternative schools, up from $396 million the previous year, an increase of $4 million. However, it froze overall funding for public and Catholic schools at $8.2 billion. Teresa DiNinno told the News that the previous NDP government reinstated charter and private schools’ funding for increased enrolment, which the UCP is simply continuing. “Regardless of the jurisdiction, rural or urban, small or big, with or without surplus, and all of the alternative programs that exist, which are funded with public dollars … all got a few dollars to provide a program for those new enrolments,” she said. Without a slight boost to funding for enrolment growth, CAPE would need to engage in some “belt tightening,”such as cutting teachers’ pay and recruiting volunteers for various fundraisers, DiNinno added. “It basically allows us to fund the programs for any students that are new this year to CAPE,” said DiNinno, who emphasized she speaks only for CAPE, not any other alternative schools in the province or region. She says CAPE has had 25 per cent enrolment growth in the 2018-19 school year, which equals 50 students. “Without those dollars, those 50 new students would cost CAPE a significant number of dollars, but that little bit of grant increase covers that to some extent,” DiNinno said. “We are still going to have to figure out a way of making a budget that balances without sacrificing the program, which is our main focus – that means the kids.” The provincial government is undergoing a survey to receive public input on its upcoming “Choice in Education Act,” which DiNinno says “is intended to make sure that parents are the primary decision makers when it comes to their child’s education and have options within Alberta to send their children to whatever educational institution they deem is suitable for that child.” “As far as the dollars attached to that, I don’t think it’s going to change,” she said of funding for charter schools. “There’s only so much to go around. There’s only so much you can do with those dollars.” 12-11
