The Chinook's Edge School Division (CESD) transportation system is increasingly under pressure because of inadequate government funding, according to a report approved by the CESD board on Dec. 10.
The division's annual education results and three-year education plan report were prepared by the division and will now be forwarded to Alberta Education for consideration.
“We spend a considerable amount of time collecting information, talking to schools, finding out key strategies,” said Ray Hoppins, CESD associate superintendent of systems services. “All the departments, and all of our associate superintendents and superintendent of schools contributed to the content.”
The report included a section on trends, issues and challenges facing the division over the next three years.
“The transportation needs and expectations of our students and parents continue to exceed the resources made available to Chinook's Edge,” the report states. “Increases to the cost of fuel have not been funded accordingly for the last three years.
“In addition, the lack of adequate funding along with the increased demand for our limited resources has made it difficult to evergreen (maintain) our bus fleet. As such, the foreseeable future looks bleak for capital replacement.
“Finally, there has been a substantial increase to the demand for urban busing without government funding. Overall, transportation services face major shortages in budget areas such as staffing, capital and other operational costs.”
The division's transportation system moves 5,000 students to classes every school day, covering a service area of more than 8,200 square kilometres. There are 120 bus routes in the division in 2014-15, up from 118 in 2013-14.
The report also identifies challenges for overall education and includes the following comments:
“Over the past number of years it has become very apparent that the needs of our students who make up our classrooms have been increasing. These increased needs require professional development for staff, access to specialized consultants from the division /region, trained support staff, collaborative partnerships, and time for teachers to plan, develop and meet about individualized student support plans.
“All of these additional supports require school divisions to have adequate access to resources and funding form the province. While we appreciate the funding we receive for inclusive education, we want to be sure that the province is aware the expenditures to ensure appropriate and reasonable supports are in place do not match the funding allocation provided.
“We trust the funding allocation model will be reviewed and revised so the funding adequately supports the costs for providing high quality inclusive education in Alberta.”
The division hopes Alberta Education will take the comments about transportation and education to heart, said Hoppins.
“This will not be the first opportunity Alberta Education will have to see our challenges,” said Hoppins. “We have ongoing communications around these things and we just really look forward to continuing discussions to make sure that we are doing all we can as a jurisdiction and as a province to serve our students.”
One of highlights of the report has to do with graduation levels, he said.
“We are very proud of our high school completion rate,” he said. “The province uses high school completion as one of the major indicators of success and our high school completion rate in the division sits at an all time high of 81.1 per cent and the province is at 74.9.
“It speaks to the work in our schools and communities and speaks to the cooperation between home and school. Parent, teachers, support staff members and school leaders alike share in that success, I really believe that.”
The complete report and plan is available for public viewing at www.chinooksedge.ab.ca.
There are 11,000 students in the Innisfail-headquartered CESD.
"The transportation needs and expectations of our students and parents continue to exceed the resources made available to Chinook's Edge."- CESD report
