22 fewer teachers in public school board budget

Over a three-year period during the pandemic, the school board saw a decline in students but received the same amount of COVID-19 funding from the government.

The school board says it made the most of that additional funding by hiring 19 support teachers.

“We knew we had funding that was temporary and we wanted to make the greatest gains during that period unfortunately the resources aren’t there to continue that level of staffing in 23-24,” says Leanne Dulle, Director of Finance, Medicine Hat Public Schools.

Superintendent Mark Davidson says the budget cuts will affect teachers looking to renew or extend their contracts.

“Well over a dozen of those are folks who have chosen to retire and move away and so the number of positions that will be reduced by not renewing contracts is significantly fewer than the 22 would suggest.”

Declining enrolments is an issue the school board expects to face over the next ten years. It’s projected there will be 46 fewer students in the upcoming school year. By 2033, enrolment is anticipated to be down more than 1-thousand students.

“We had been expecting in our region a decline in the number of school aged children for quite some time and now that day has arrived,” says Davidson.

Davidson says despite the staffing cuts the school board will be able to maintain class sizes at the current level for the 2023-24 school year.

The Prairie Rose School Division also released its budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year that will see an increase of 5 teacher positions.

The school division expects a decline of 32 students next year and is forecasting a deficit of more than 167 thousand dollars.

The school division also plans on adding four new bus routes to reduce student ride times and purchase new location-tracking software for the buses.

The Medicine Hat Catholic School board is expected to pass their budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year on Monday.

by Brendan Miller

22 fewer teachers in public school board budget

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