Calls to scrap CBE school fees getting louder

Alberta’s opposition is calling on the NDP to eliminate school fees as Calgary public schools see a huge spike in families unable to pay, because of higher costs and a brutal economy.

The Calgary Board of Education’s (CBE) Chief Financial Officer, Brad Grundy, tells CityNews the fees are reasonable in comparison to the services provided.

“We have a comprehensive waiver program in our organization that is designed to address difficulties in families paying fees,” he explained.

But, there has been a 58 per cent increase in the number of people seeking waivers.

According to the CBE’s own numbers, $3.1 million in fees were waived in 2014-15, up from $2.1 million the year before but Grundy says that trend is starting to slow down.

Barbara Silva, with Support Our Students Alberta, says the fees amount to a flat tax that disproportionately affects families around the poverty line.

“They create substantial financial stress for families, which we know translates to children, and when children internalize stresses like that it makes it more difficult for them to learn, for them to integrate into their school communities,” she said.

Silva explained a family busing two kids to school is spending $1,300 a year on transportation alone.

“Over the course of 12 years, that’s upwards of $15,000 dollars to access a public education system, and that’s just unacceptable,” she argued.

Those numbers do not include other things like field trips, which she argues should be covered if they’re going to be part of the curriculum.

Silva added the waiver process can be humiliating for parents who need to provide pay stubs and T4 slips, as well as for newcomers who may not speak English as a first language, or may not have easy access to computers or the internet.

Grundy says the board’s preference would be to not have to charge fees.

“If the government had a mechanism to allow us to fund the cost of those services that would be a good thing,” he said. “I would observe, however, that somebody has to pay those fees at some point in time, be it the tax payers in general or the people using the service.”

When one family’s waiver claim is accepted, the share for other families’ fees go up fractions of cents.