CBE faces a $47-million deficit for vulnerable students

Advocates say special needs students have become particularly vulnerable as principals struggle to stretch limited dollars across higher needs

Jennifer Allan and her three special needs kids. Left to right are Rylan, 12, Frankie, 7, mom Jen, and Makayla, 9. Supplied by Jennifer Allan

Advocates are warning “special education is in crisis” as funding continues to fall behind enrollment growth and more special needs students are placed in regular classrooms without aids and other learning resources.

The Calgary Board of Education is facing a $47-million deficit for special needs funding this year, as the number of students with learning disabilities grows amid an unprecedented, post-COVID enrollment spike in September 2022.

In a special report to trustees last fall, the CBE’s chief financial officer Brad Grundy outlined the shortfall, explaining that a total of two grants for specialized learning supports added up to $99 million in funding for this school year.

“But we spend $146.9 million, which leaves a difference of $47 million,” Grundy said, adding that the CBE’s overall funding from the province last year was “$1.15 billion, and for the current school year, it is also $1.15 billion. So there is no change.”

CBE officials also suggested at the time that options for other grant money could be explored. But this week, CBE spokeswoman Joanne Anderson confirmed “the CBE has not made a formal request to Alberta Education for additional funding in this area.”

At the same time, the CBE’s enrollment data for this school year saw 5,886 new students, four times more than the expected 1,500, bringing total enrollment to 131,215.

Students seeing less funding

Ultimately, as schools face larger class sizes and ongoing COVID learning loss, advocates say special needs students have become particularly vulnerable as principals struggle to stretch limited dollars across higher needs.

“Special education is in crisis. And I’m really worried about it. I’m very, very worried,” said Lyndon Parakin, executive director with the Autism Calgary Association, which supports more than 3,500 families.

“Because of flatter funding that doesn’t match student needs, or enrollment growth, dollars are being spread much more thinly.”

Funding for special needs programs like PUF (program unit funding) which targeted the youngest students has been “reframed,” Parakin explained, meaning some of it has been replaced with other grants.

But because those are distributed more broadly across the system, it still means less for individual students, including those in kindergarten or Grade 1, who need it the most.

“It means those younger kids with special needs aren’t getting those critical, foundational skills,” he said.

“And every grade after that they get further and further behind — until it becomes a crisis.”

More students with needs in classrooms

According to the latest data from Alberta Education, the number of students coded with special needs — from behavioral and emotional issues to learning and physical disabilities — has grown from 104,000 in 2016, to more than 114,000 in 2019, just before COVID disruptions reduced overall enrollment .

But those stats only include students who are “coded” or diagnosed with a specific need. And advocates say thousands of others remain in the system without a code and without supporting in the classroom.

And as post-COVID enrollment grows, special student numbers do as well, Parakin explained, spreading what little funding there is even thinner.

With fewer staff to support those students, CBE has had to reduce “special education placements,” he added, because the most severe students require higher student-to-staff ratios, creating a domino effect.

“It means more severe students, will end up with moderate severe students. And it means those with milder needs, are pushed into regular classrooms more than ever.”

Parakin added that parents of kids on the autism spectrum, who he’s worked with for over two decades, used to be able to explore options at different schools, asking what supports their child would get in a regular classroom and how many teachers’ aids and learning specialists were available.

“But now when families ask ‘will my child get an aid?’ they are told ‘we don’t have any aids in our school.’”

Supports for some students inadequate

Another big change the Autism Calgary Association has seen in recent years is more parents receiving repeated calls from public schools to have their children picked up because they have become too disruptive, or their safety has become compromised.

“That used to be a big deal, a really serious thing if a child couldn’t stay at school all day,” Parakin said.

“Now it’s become so common … parents are being asked weekly, sometimes daily, that their child can only handle two hours of school because they just don’t get the supports needed to regulate them.”

As part of CBE’s strategy, unveiled in this fall’s inclusive education report, officials outlined a “continuum of supports” for special needs students, starting in the regular classroom through individualized program plans or with teachers’ aids, maintaining a philosophy to ensure no student ever feels different or excluded.

“At the core of inclusion is the concept of making ordinary differences so that all students have a place, feel valued and welcome, and are equipped for success,” said Andrea Holowka, CBE superintendent of school improvement.

“The outcome of inclusion must create a welcoming environment for all students, in which each learner feels safe and is able to experience success.”

‘The system has a responsibility to teach every child’

Holowka also explained that a school board’s legislative mandate within the Education Act includes a legal responsibility to provide supports “consistent with the principles of inclusive education,” and that CBE must also uphold human rights legislation, ensuring all students, regardless of diversity, are offered a quality education.

But advocates say a lack of resources is making it harder to meet that mandate with more schools stretched to provide not just intervention, but identification of need.

“Whether a child is coded or not, the system has a responsibility to teach every child and there needs to be multiple points of entry to accommodate a learner,” said Dena Southas, who has a daughter with special needs at a CBE elementary school.

Southas said provincial underfunding for special needs kids has also created backlogs for assessments to diagnose specific learning needs so that kids can get the unique supports they need.

But when kids don’t get that, and teachers have to deal with it on their own in a regular classroom, Southas said it impacts everyone.

“Teachers have high-needs kids who need one-on-one support, and are taking up so much of that teacher’s time, the other kids aren’t getting what they need either.”

Alberta budget provided funding increase, says province

Alberta Education said the 2022 Budget provided an increase in funding to school boards across the province of more than $700 million over the next three years — including $142 million for the 2022/23 fiscal year.

“Budget 2022 also includes $1.4 billion for learning support funding to support our most vulnerable students. In the 2022/23 school year, CBE received $95 million through this funding,” said Emily Peckham, press secretary to Education Minister Adriana LaGrange.

Peckham added that for school boards like CBE that have grown by more than two per cent, Alberta Education also introduced the “Supplemental Enrollment Growth Grant” to provide additional per-student funding.

“Most of this funding was provided in November 2022 to better meet the needs of school authorities and to ensure funding was available in a timely fashion.”

A final allocation will be provided to school authorities once Alberta Education finalizes enrollment for this school year by the end of this month.

Underfunding presenting challenges provincewide

Jennifer Allan, mother to three kids with complex needs in a rural community just north of Calgary, said the challenges of underfunding are impacting school boards across the province.

“I’ve been tapped out for quite some time, from the sheer exhaustion of trying to fill in these ever-widening gaps created by funding cuts or the outright removal of services.”

Allan added that her youngest son, who started kindergarten in the fall of 2019, just before COVID, has not yet experienced a normal school year, including this one where he’s experienced a litany of respiratory illness.

“How am I supposed to make up this critical time now, and for the rest of his school days, to push him to the max now, and expect him to learn at such a rapid rate?

“As a parent, you feel this constant worry of disruption to all my kids learning… How and why has this become so acceptable?”

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