BARRHEAD - No schools in the Pembina Hills School Division are currently recommended for permanent closure or grade re-configuration, according to the 2020-2021 School Viability Report reviewed by trustees at their Nov. 25 board meeting.
Policy 15 — Grade Configuration and School Closures requires the Pembina Hills superintendent to annually apply the criteria contained within the policy to the division’s schools and then make a recommendation for a potential closure/grade reconfiguration prior to the new year.
Under the criteria for critical minimum enrolment, Fort Assiniboine was the only school to meet the threshold of 20 full-time students in Grades 4-6.
Fort Assiniboine currently has 19 Grade 4-6 students in part because two students who would normally attend classes are home-schooling due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the report indicates that enrolment in the 2021-2022 school year is projected to be 26 students in Grades 4-6 and 24 students in Grades 7-9.
Fort Assiniboine also met one of the criteria under five-year enrolment projections, which schools prepare in January of each year as part of their annual planning cycle.
The report states that in 2023-2024, Fort Assiniboine is expected to have 39 students in Kindergarten to Grade 3, 33 students in Grades 4-6 and 19 students in Grades 7-9, which technically meets the threshold for closure.
However, the problem corrects itself the following year. During 2024-25, Fort Assiniboine is projected to have 35 students in Kindergarten to Grade 3, 28 students in Grades 4-6 and 26 students in Grades 7-9.
Because of this slight drop in enrolment, Fort Assiniboine School generates a total of $750,000 in provincial funding from Alberta Education for the division, but is allocated a total of $872,127 to cover its expenses.
As such, the school creates a shortfall of $122,127 for the division this year. Supt. David Garbutt said that roughly equates to just over 1.0 FTE staff.
“Given all of those factors, the recommendation from senior admin right now is that the board not consider any school closures effective the 2021-2022 school year based on the current closure criteria,” Garbutt added.
Trustee Kerry McElroy asked if the new weighted moving average that the province introduced earlier this year will affect Pembina Hills’ ability to allocate that amount of funds to Fort Assiniboine.
Garbutt replied it should mitigate that circumstance more than the old funding formula.
“I think the new funding framework actually benefits our division, because we’re projecting slightly declining enrolment year over year,” he said.
