February 29, 2024
Alberta education budget 2024: ‘More’ does not equal nearly enough This afternoon, Alberta’s UCP government tabled their 2024 Budget. To our dismay, once again, inadequate K-12 education will continue to starve the rapidly growing public education system. The allotted education funding does not cover inflation and enrollment growth. Funding that doesn’t keep pace equals real cuts. Read our full statement. |
February 21, 2024
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February 8, 2024
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February 1, 2024
Release:
Danielle Smith’s “Gender Identity” Policies are Draconian Violations of Trans & Queer Students’ Rights
On Wednesday, January 31, Premier Danielle Smith released a seven-minute video on X (formerly Twitter) about her alarming “Gender Identity” policies. Support Our Students Alberta absolutely opposes these proposed measures. These sweeping policies specifically target young Albertans who identify as LGBTQ2S+ and outright ban their access to safe schools, healthcare, medicine, and psychological support. In school settings, these students’ rights to safe self expression will also be banned. Queer and transgender students, especially those without affirming homes, are already vulnerable to alienation, isolation, suicide, and homelessness. Smith’s policies significantly multiply their risk of harm.
Read more here...
November 28, 2023
Alberta Students Continue to Learn in Overcrowded, Highly Complex Classrooms Despite Government Announcement
After too many consecutive years of steep education cuts, the small injection announced by the UCP Government today is significantly short of what is actually needed to alleviate overcrowded and highly complex Alberta classrooms. Statistics Canada found that Alberta comes in dead last and well below the national average in per-student spending. Meanwhile, a record number of new families are moving to Alberta from other provinces and abroad. Combined with historic inflation pressures, this means $30 million distributed across many school divisions does not go far to address the estimated $1.2 Billion/year shortfall of education funding. Earlier this week, the UCP Government struck down a proposed Education (Class Size and Composition) Amendment Act that would have restored public class size reporting, augmented funding, and overall transparency about the tangible crisis in public education. It was the UCP government themselves who removed class size reporting and funding in 2019. All this shows they are not truly committed to concrete action and this negligence only leaves students without adequate educational resources.
Read more here...
Alberta Students Continue to Learn in Overcrowded, Highly Complex Classrooms Despite Government Announcement
After too many consecutive years of steep education cuts, the small injection announced by the UCP Government today is significantly short of what is actually needed to alleviate overcrowded and highly complex Alberta classrooms. Statistics Canada found that Alberta comes in dead last and well below the national average in per-student spending. Meanwhile, a record number of new families are moving to Alberta from other provinces and abroad. Combined with historic inflation pressures, this means $30 million distributed across many school divisions does not go far to address the estimated $1.2 Billion/year shortfall of education funding. Earlier this week, the UCP Government struck down a proposed Education (Class Size and Composition) Amendment Act that would have restored public class size reporting, augmented funding, and overall transparency about the tangible crisis in public education. It was the UCP government themselves who removed class size reporting and funding in 2019. All this shows they are not truly committed to concrete action and this negligence only leaves students without adequate educational resources.
Read more here...
May 3, 2023
Alberta Provincial Election is on!
Alberta Provincial Election is on!
Alberta's provincial election has officially been called for May 29!
In the past 4 years, Alberta's public education system has been heavily attacked by a hostile provincial government. With frozen education budgets each year, resources have not kept up with historic inflation and increased student enrolment. Grant cuts have caused classes to balloon to untenable sizes & complexities. Safety measures and programs were even withheld from students during a global health crisis.
Public education is our best chance at generating societal cohesion and preparing children for active democratic engagement so we can collectively solve multiple overlapping societal crises.
But it needs to be bolstered and actively protected this provincial election.
Use our SOS Public Education Voter Toolkit to question your candidates.
Talk to your friends and school/parent communities about making public education a key election issue on May 29.
In the past 4 years, Alberta's public education system has been heavily attacked by a hostile provincial government. With frozen education budgets each year, resources have not kept up with historic inflation and increased student enrolment. Grant cuts have caused classes to balloon to untenable sizes & complexities. Safety measures and programs were even withheld from students during a global health crisis.
Public education is our best chance at generating societal cohesion and preparing children for active democratic engagement so we can collectively solve multiple overlapping societal crises.
But it needs to be bolstered and actively protected this provincial election.
Use our SOS Public Education Voter Toolkit to question your candidates.
Talk to your friends and school/parent communities about making public education a key election issue on May 29.
March 3, 2023
New OpEd just published:
"Charter schools erode public education" by Wing Li (Communications Director)
In the Feb. 15 Edmonton Journal, David Staples lauded the benefits of charter schools in a column praising the breadth of school choice available in the capital region. While Edmonton Public Schools are being forced to compete with charter and private-schooling options for limited public funds, we need to ask whether this competition for resources is equitable for children. At a time when Alberta public schools are losing EAs, teachers, librarians, and school counsellors, is it really fiscally responsible to funnel more money into exclusive options outside of the public system such as charter schools?
Read more>>>
New OpEd just published:
"Charter schools erode public education" by Wing Li (Communications Director)
In the Feb. 15 Edmonton Journal, David Staples lauded the benefits of charter schools in a column praising the breadth of school choice available in the capital region. While Edmonton Public Schools are being forced to compete with charter and private-schooling options for limited public funds, we need to ask whether this competition for resources is equitable for children. At a time when Alberta public schools are losing EAs, teachers, librarians, and school counsellors, is it really fiscally responsible to funnel more money into exclusive options outside of the public system such as charter schools?
Read more>>>
March 1, 2023
MEDIA RELEASE: UCP 2023 Pre-election Budget Prioritizes Private and Charter Schools
After several years of flat education spending (which amounted to real cuts, leaving thousands of Alberta students in public schools unfunded), the mere injection of 5.2% of operational funding will hardly meet the bare minimum for funding enrolment growth. Despite the government's huge surplus, this budget leaves students in public schools ignored and gravely neglected.
The real winners of this budget are private and charter schools. There is new funding for private school transportation and new charter school construction. Read more >>>
MEDIA RELEASE: UCP 2023 Pre-election Budget Prioritizes Private and Charter Schools
After several years of flat education spending (which amounted to real cuts, leaving thousands of Alberta students in public schools unfunded), the mere injection of 5.2% of operational funding will hardly meet the bare minimum for funding enrolment growth. Despite the government's huge surplus, this budget leaves students in public schools ignored and gravely neglected.
The real winners of this budget are private and charter schools. There is new funding for private school transportation and new charter school construction. Read more >>>
10 Strategies for Equitable Public Education
We would like the Alberta Government to redefine and recommit the government’s responsibility to a more equitable public education system for all Alberta students.
- Make high quality early childhood education universal and accessible, leveling the playing field and closing the achievement gap for underprivileged children.
- Build schools as community engagement centres, comprehensive facilities where children and citizens can participate physically, intellectually and civically.
- Eliminate ALL barriers including all school-related fees (including, but not limited to, instructional materials, bussing, lunch supervision) and application procedures.
- All schools should have a full, inclusive, and balanced curriculum including but not limited to arts, music, science, history, language arts, additional languages, mathematics, and physical education.
- Reduce class sizes to bring them in line with the recommendations in the Alberta Learning Commission report of 2003 & provide adequate supports for classroom complexity.
- Integrate charter schools into public system, eliminating all fees and ability to deny access.
- Provide integrated services for students including medical and social services that help children keep up with advantaged peers. One in six Alberta children live in poverty.
- Reduce emphasis on high stakes standardized testing. Provide alternative and more comprehensive criteria for measuring student success.
- Return to specialization for teachers at all grade levels.
- Recognize that public education is a public responsibility not a consumer good. Its quality and accessibility should be equitable across the province.