Valley Creek School Parent Council

10951 Hidden Valley Dr NW

Calgary, AB, T3A 6J2

vcschoolcouncil@gmail.com

 

Honourable Amanda Chapman

MLA for Calgary-Beddington

Unit 106, 8220 Centre Street NE

Calgary, AB T3K 1J7

Dear Honourable MLA Chapman,

Please accept this letter on behalf of Valley Creek School Parent Council. We are compelled to address urgent issues severely impacting our students' quality of education. Our communities are experiencing unprecedented enrollment growth, significantly increasing class sizes and straining our resources. This year alone, Valley Creek School expanded its boundaries to include the newly developed neighbourhood of Ambleton, yet this expansion was not met with corresponding increases in funding or capital infrastructure.

Our schools are vibrant hubs with students speaking over forty languages. Many of these students are English as Additional Language (EAL) learners who arrived without the ability to speak English. Yet, the provision of necessary learning resources such as Educational Assistants (EA) has not kept pace with this complexity. As a result, the school board’s capacity to provide a high-quality educational experience is being compromised.

We respectfully request your support in advocating that the UCP Government take immediate action to rectify this situation by prioritizing the following:

1.     Enhanced Educational Funding: Increased public school funding to address classroom overcrowding and increased base funding to match the inflation rate for operational costs.[1]

2.     Infrastructure Upgrades: The rapid enrollment growth necessitates urgent construction of new public school facilities in Northwest Calgary. The provincial government must allocate funds for this critical infrastructure to alleviate the current pressures on Ward 3 schools.[2]

3.     Support for Mental Health: We urgently need to expand mental health resources in our schools to ensure all students can access the care they require before reaching a crisis point.[3]

4.     Reallocate Funding to Public Schools: Public funds be devoted exclusively to public education rather than being diverted to private and charter schools.[4]

Your proven dedication to education and community service gives us hope that you will advocate for these essential changes. Please continue to advocate for public reporting of classroom sizes and complexity so that Ward 3 parents stay informed. By supporting these initiatives, you will aid our school communities and establish a standard of educational excellence that the Calgary Board of Education desperately needs.

We would greatly appreciate an opportunity to discuss these issues with you to determine how we can work collaboratively with your office to push this call to action to the forefront. We believe that together, we can make impactful changes to foster a better educational environment for our children.

Respectfully,

Valley Creek School Parent Council 

CC: 

Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides

Educational Director, Melody Pelling

School Board Trustee Wards 3 & 4, Laura Hack

 
[1] Over the past two years, we have welcomed more than 13,000 additional students into our system – enough to fill about 22 elementary schools. Our official enrolment for the 2023-24 school year as of Sept. 30 was 138,244 students and we expect to welcome an additional 4,000 students throughout the school year. By 2028, we project an enrolment of almost 160,000 students. For 2024-25, the CBE will receive an additional $85 million from the government to fund enrolment growth. However, this increase does not address inflation or the real cost of supporting students with increasingly complex learning needs.

[2] Currently, one in four schools is operating at 100 per cent utilization or higher. Even though 30 new schools have opened since the 2016-17 school year, the CBE is experiencing record growth. The system utilization rate is already at 92 per cent and is expected to top 100 per cent in the next two years. Over the next three years, the CBE is asking for 21 new schools and five major modernizations. Without new schools, the CBE’s system utilization rate is projected to be 107 per cent by 2028-29. Modernizations are also needed as more than half of our 251 schools are 50+ years old.

[3] Dr. Monique Jericho says hospital admissions for mental health concerns are 40 percent higher in the Calgary zone than they were pre-pandemic. She said there are long waits for community-based supports and she's heard from pediatricians who are desperate to find help for their patients. According to Jericho, schools and community therapists are resorting to sending struggling children to the ER because they are so high risk. 

[4] Charter schools are not public schools. While they receive public dollars, they are not publicly accessible and not publicly governed. They are also not publicly evaluated as they are not systematically assessed and their public benefit remains unstudied. Even though the UCP rolled charters into the “public school” tent by changing the Education Act to improve the branding of charter schools, they remain a dangerous siphon of resources from the public system.