Math class.
90,000,000 + 40,000,000 + 17,000,000 = 147,000,000
… reasons to have one school district across the Lakeland.
Almost $150 million in revenues each school year — most coming from provincial grant funding — goes toward operating 40 schools from Plamondon to Cold Lake in the public, Francophone and catholic school divisions.
Divisions.
In a world where inclusivity is a key, in classrooms where lessons are taught about historic and current wars based on divisions and boundaries, the separations in schooling continue.
Each school board wants the best for its students, staff and families. But in order to provide those levels of expectation, they must compete with other like-minded groups for the overall funding allocations divvied out by provincial bankers. Each must offer reasons why their projects are more worthy than others, many times competing within communities for those much-needed dollars.
It creates a win-lose situation, but there is no winner when student learning is jeopardized. The current system makes for competition that isn’t healthy, deepens divisions, and only hurts those same people each school board is trying to provide for.
One school district — offering learning environments and funding for all students — in schools where religions, cultures and education can co-exist under one amalgamated roof would be the start of a shared lesson plan the entire world could learn from.
