With provincial opposition parties calling on the province to eliminate mandatory school fees, the Chinook's Edge School Division has no plans to reassess current fees for this school year, says superintendent Kurt Sacher.
The fees are an important funding source for the division, he said.
“We've already set the fees and the board has been really, really careful to hold the line with the fees, which have hardly gone up at all in the last few years,” Sacher told the Gazette.
“The board makes good use of those funds and they are very important to help offset the material costs that we face. If we didn't have that kind of support from parents it would just be one more challenge we'd have to face in the overall budget picture and we'd have to respond accordingly.
“If we didn't have that kind of funding we'd have to subsidize it from the other funds the government gives us and it would take away from some of the other things we do in the division. It is working for us in the division.”
Sacher noted that there is a program in place in Chinook's Edge where fees can be waived for parents who cannot afford them.
“There is a procedure that they go through and all of our administrators know about it. Basically they just have to provide evidence of family income that would demonstrate that they can't afford it. There is a baseline.”
Parents wishing to access the waiver program can do so through their children's school.
Last week the Wildrose Party and the provincial Liberals put out a call for the elimination of school fees, which are used for busing and extracurricular activities in many school divisions.
“Wildrose understands that Alberta's young families and children are a major source of our province's energy and economic strength,” said Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith in a release. “Government should support them and do what it can to allow hard-working parents to keep more of their money in their pocket.
“I'm proud to announce that a Wildrose government would ban mandatory school fees and bring an end to this unfair nickel-and-diming of Alberta families.”
Liberal education critic Kent Hehr called school fees a form of “downloading” on parents.
“No family should have to worry about hundreds of dollars in school fees as they put their children on the bus or drop them off each morning,” said Hehr.
“School fees are just another financial burden on Alberta's families. Instead of restructuring our fiscal system to fund education properly, the Redford Conservatives continue to download the costs on families.”
Responding to opposition calls for the elimination of the fees, Premier Alison Redford said her government is not planning to review the current school fee policy, which sees individual boards set fees.
“There's a discussion that takes place between parents and local school boards and the communities need to make those decisions,” Redford reportedly said. “That's the policy and we're not intending to change that.
“I think coming up with these sorts of proposals (eliminating fees) don't actually take into account the work that school boards are doing long term.”
The Innisfail-based Chinook's Edge division operates 40 schools in West Central Alberta.
