Canadian Rockies Public Schools official enrollment numbers are in and it is good news for the school division.
With an additional 105 students over the 2012-13 school year, and 90 more than originally budgeted for, CRPS has an additional $620,000 as a result of its total student population of 2,169.
That means a $254,000 deficit budget passed by the board in spring has been taken care of and additional staff hired, according to CRPS chair Kim Bater.
“We have more students, which means we have more money,” Bater said at last Thursday’s (Oct. 17) board meeting.
Superintendent Chris MacPhee said having 90 students more than was budgeted for not only allows this year’s deficit budget to be addressed, but he has been allocating additional staff in schools with the remaining funds.
“As of now we are looking at addressing some needs in the system as quickly as we can,” he said.
MacPhee said total full-time staff has been increased by 5.34 FTEs (full-time equivalents), to 128.48 FTEs compared to the last school year. Teaching staff, he said, was added where there were “hot spots” to address.
He said there are also four additional educational assistants, administrative assistant hours that were cut in the budget were offered back to staff that want to work professional development Fridays and library assistants who want to can add one hour back to their schedules.
“With adjustments to teaching staff, educational assistants, extra library and administrative assistant hours and other general costs, that left $79,000 remaining in case we have any other pieces occur,” MacPhee said.
While the division eliminated its deficit for this school year, it still has a $1.4 million deficit to address. MacPhee recommended not using the $79,000 remaining until the audited financials for the last school year are complete.
He added, given the needs in the English as a second language (ESL) program, once last year’s books are done and numbers solidified, he will likely return with additional resources for that program.
Bater noted with an additional $620,000 in revenue already, 80 per cent has been allocated back to classrooms.
The financial situation with the new Waldorf-inspired Alpenglow school run out of Canmore Collegiate was also discussed by the board.
MacPhee said gross revenue from the 59 students in the program results in $468,000 for CRPS and the cost to the school district to run the program is approximately $387,000.
He said that means the additional $81,000 is going to support the entire school district. The program, which has come about through the work of parents in the community who wanted a Waldorf-inspired program, has an educational assistant position paid for by the parent group and all the renovations done in the school were also through volunteer efforts and donations. As an alternative program, the school also charges a fee of $750 per student and an additional $215 per child for Friday programming.
“They use that to pay for a variety of things,” he said.
Another misconception about the program, added MacPhee, includes that it is capped. The only cap placed on the program is on the number of children who can transfer from other CRPS schools into Alpenglow. MacPhee said that was done to prevent losing too many students from CRPS’s public schools into the new program, thus negatively affecting classrooms from kindergarten to Grade 4 in the rest of school division.
