In hundreds of schools in Alberta, enrolment numbers now exceed available classroom space. While parents and teachers wait for the new schools announced this fall to be built, some are asking the province to step in with additional staff and supports funding to cope with overcrowding.
Some 200 K-12 schools in Alberta are over capacity in the 2023-24 school year, according to statistics from Alberta Education. Another 27 schools are at 100 per cent capacity, having the same number of students enrolled as they were designed to hold. Dozens more sit between 97 and 99 per cent full, in some cases only a few new students away from running out of room.
Though about three-quarters of full or over-capacity schools are in Edmonton and Calgary, school authorities in 28 other municipalities have also hit enrolment limits.
Fiona Gilbert, board chair of the Rocky View School Division, said with most of the division’s 17 schools in Airdrie at or over capacity, the average utilization rate is at 97 per cent this year. They are looking at adjusting attendance boundaries and changing grade configurations to address student population challenges starting in fall 2025.
“Climbing student enrolment over the last 10 years has created significant space pressures in many Airdrie schools and across the division. While strong advocacy efforts to the provincial government resulted in two Airdrie K-9 schools approved for construction and a high school approved for design in Budget 2024, these schools take years to build and will not fully resolve the space challenges we face,” Gilbert said in an email.
In September, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced over the next three years the province will approve up to 90 new public, private, and charter schools. Along with planned modernizations, the province estimates its $8.6 billion construction plan will add 200,000 student spaces by 2031.
“Additionally, this school year, we are also investing in 180 new modular classrooms and relocating 31 existing modular classrooms to create nearly 4,500 new student spaces in our fastest growing communities,” Nicolaides said in an email.
Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA), said the new schools are a much-needed response to the large class sizes we’re seeing, “but what I'm hearing from my members is, what are we going to do to address the needs now?”
“Public education is in a crisis. Right now, our classrooms are overcrowded. We don't have resources to effectively support those kids, and there is not a lot of effort by government to address the concerns that we're seeing right now while we wait for schools to be built,” Schilling said.
Schilling said schools need to hire more teachers, so that even in an overfull classroom, the work can be divided and improve student-to-teacher ratios. Adding educational assistants, school councillors, and mental health supports would also benefit students and staff in the interim, he said.
“There's a lot of things that are out there that we could be doing to address the workload that teachers are experiencing because, as we like to say, a teacher's working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. And right now, government is failing to adequately fund our schools.”
When Alberta’s new schools are completed, Schilling said there are still unanswered questions about who will staff them. The ATA estimates 8,000 teachers would be needed for the 200,000 new student spaces, and Schilling said funding cuts also have universities and pre-service teacher education programs “scrambling” to increase their own capacity.
“Our other worry is that we'll see a push to de-professionalize teaching and make easier to get teaching credentials without getting the proper foundational things that teachers learn in universities, such as pedagogy, curriculum, classroom management, and practicum experience. So we're concerned that the government might look for ways to cut corners,” he said.
Nicolaides said the province is adding funding for several supports over consecutive budgets alongside the capital projects.
“Over the next three years, we are providing $1.2 billion to hire more than 3,000 new teachers and other education support staff, and this summer, we injected an additional $125 million into the education system, which school authorities could use to hire up to 1,000 additional teachers. We are also investing $1.5 billion this school year alone to support students' specialized learning needs. School authorities can use this funding to hire additional educational support staff such as EA’s, occupational therapists, counsellors and psychologists,” he said.
“As more new schools come online over the next seven years, school authorities have the accountability to plan and manage their resources to make hiring decisions that are reflective of the needs of the communities and students they serve.”
