Welcome to Okotoks — dive right in

Kathleen O’Donovan, 11, cools off on a hot Saturday afternoon by diving into the Sheep River in Okotoks. Temperatures are expected to remain warm this week for the 2004 Alberta Summer Games which will be held this week in Okotoks, High River and the MD of Foothills. Opening ceremonies are Thursday night at the High River Rodeo Grounds. photo by John Barlow

Education - FSD to hire 25 new teachers

By John Barlow
Editor

An infusion of funding from the provincial government could mean as many as 25 additional teachers for the Foothills School Division this fall.
Last Friday Alberta Learning Minister Lyle Oberg announced an additional $149 million for school boards to hire more teachers over the next three years.
According to Jerry Muelaner, chair of the Foothills School Division’s board of trustees, the division will receive $1 million for this year.
“This will allow us to start fixing the problem and that is good news,” said Muelaner on Friday afternoon.
Although he is pleased with the announcement, Muelaner admits adding more teachers is only one part of the repair.
Additional teachers will allow FSD to make smaller classes, but the question now is where do they put them?
“Just adding more teachers doesn’t solve the problem,” he added. “We have a space problem in Okotoks. We can’t fix the problem in Okotoks without infrastructure such as portables.”
However, Muelaner did not want to put a damper on what was a pleasant surprise for many school divisions including Foothills.
The news is especially good for FSD after it did not receive any additional funding in the spring when the provincial government made its last funding announcement.
“We had great expectations (in the spring) and they (the funding) did not meet the mark,” explained Muelaner. “Now we can really do something. Except for some hot spots we are at the Alberta Learning Commission standards (for classroom size), but we can now identify issues in individual classrooms.”
The Learning Commission’s guidelines for class sizes range from 17 for kindergarten through Grade 3 to 27 students in Grades 10 through 12.
The provincial government has come under fire for the funding infusion into education as opponents have accused Premier Ralph Klein of trying to buy votes with this recent announcement just months before what could be a winter election.
For Muelaner, he said he did not care about the provincial government’s motivation.
“It is an election year and the government is throwing money around — I really don’t care,” he said with a relieved laugh. “This continues to be about the kids and I don’t care about the political motivation (for the funding).”
The Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) and The Alberta Teacher’s Association (ATA) have also voiced their support.
“While class size is only one factor that affects quality of education, parents and educators agree that it is an important one,” said ASBA president Michele Mulder. “We are very pleased to see the government not only following through on its commitment to the class size guidelines, but doing it faster than originally planned.”
Dr. Gordon Thomas, executive secretary of the ATA added, “In a debt-free province, Alberta students should not be sitting in classrooms with over 30 students. It is also good news for Alberta’s students, teachers and parents that the announced funding has been enveloped . . . to use the money specifically for hiring teachers.”
Now that the funding has been allocated for hiring more teachers, Muelaner said the next course of business will be negotiating long-term labor peace with Alberta teachers.
One major issue, class sizes, has been addressed, now the ASBA and ATA can renew negotiations (negotiations on a long-term deal broke off again in late June) focusing on other key issues such as the unfunded liability within the teacher’s retirement fund.