CALGARY (Staff) – For some administrators in newly amalgamated school boards, the mergers have little to do with saving money and a lot to do with control by the Alberta government.
While the idea of school board amalgamation was promoted as a way to save $13 million, Bob Tredger disagrees with the approach. He is superintendent of the Acadia School Division based in Oyen.
“This is about centralization and control. I don’t believe it has anything to do with saving money,” he said.
Besides less power at the district level, Tredger and Del Homulos, a trustee in the Lethbridge Roman Catholic School District, fear for the future of some rural schools because the bottom line now rules.
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Homulos worries about the future of rural schools in general, but is confident Catholic schools will survive because their system is knit together by religious values.
On Dec. 28, his district will join Coaldale, Pincher Creek, Taber and Picture Butte Catholic schools to become the Holy Spirit Catholic Separate Regional Division.
“Our rural communities are based around our church and school so … there’ll be a real concerted effort to maintain our schools. I don’t see the same thing happening in the public rural schools,” he said.
Preserving education in Tredger’s district of southeastern Alberta is a challenge. His district will join the new division of Prairie Rose covering 24,000 square kilometres and serving a student population of 3,100. The division goes from Oyen to the American border and west to Bow Island. Medicine Hat is not included.
“As an example, we have fewer students in Acadia School division than many schools in Alberta have. Yet we have to operate seven schools … simply because our population is low and it’s spread thinly over a very wide area,” he said.
The central office for Prairie Rose will be in Dunmore, 190 kilometres from Oyen. The trip from Oyen to Bow Island is 249 km, making travel a large part of a trustee’s life.
As well, some unnatural alliances have formed since the Alberta government insisted the number of public school boards in the province shrink from 141 to less than 60.
While the majority merged easily, 15 boards failed to do so until forced into it by the Alberta education minister. Some of those boards report feeling bitter over forced marriages to other boards with whom they have nothing in common, said Dan Van Keeken.
Van Keeken, of the Alberta School Trustees Association, questions the push for the school board reduction because the saving of $13 million in a $3 billion enterprise like Alberta Education is minimal.
“Trustees are saying it makes no sense educationally. It makes no sense financially,” said Van Keeken.
He said in some areas there will actually be an increase in costs because of extra travel expenses and costs in buying out contracts of redundant superintendents and other administrative staff.
