CUPE Local President Calls
for More Funding for Schools
Local 3550 fears further cuts
to education, services in fall
EDMONTON – Trudy Grebenstein
of CUPE’s Local 3550 isn’t sitting back waiting for further provincial
cost-cutting in the K-12 education stream.
Instead, the Edmonton Public
School Board workers president has begun writing letters to local papers with a
simple mathematical lesson: one plus one equals two. The 4.2% in increased
funding allocated to Alberta’s school boards isn’t enough to cover inflation,
she says.
“In late June, trustees around the province approved budgets that have been cut to the core,” she said. “In March, the province announced a 4.2-percent increase in K-12 education funding - but that increase neglected to provide for the salary increases the government had previously negotiated with teachers and which were expected by non-teaching education workers.”
Grebenstein noted that the province had guaranteed that teachers' increases would follow the Alberta Average Weekly Earnings index, as calculated by Statistics Canada. In April 2009 that was up 5.99 per cent over the previous year.
“Each year, public school boards receive funding for the school year's supplies, equipment, services and wages for the school year beginning in September,” she said. “Surely this generous timeline provides a sufficient period for our government to set aside funding for these kinds of future promises!”
In late June it became apparent that school budgets would have to be revisited in the fall, she said. Whether that means absorbing more cuts or allocating additional funding remains to be seen.
“Come late August, Alberta's K-12 students and their parents will get excited about the upcoming school year,” Grebenstein said, “but for Alberta's school boards and administration, September means they must once again try to plot a course in a river of ever-shifting government education funding shoals and snags.”
Grebenstein adds that the government must keep its past promises and should announce its intention to support the promised 5.99-percent increase for public education services well before the 2009-10 school year begins.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport and it is up to Albertans to remind their elected officials of that,” she said. “Silence will not guard the future of public education funding in Alberta. What is very much at stake here is the excellence of public education for the most important future resource our province has - its children.”
Grebenstein’s letter has received prominent treatment in the Edmonton Journal.