A bizarre decision by Alberta Education to retract funding for hundreds of Career and Technology Studies (CTS) credits has GYRD administrators and high school principals scratching their heads and counting the costs.

“The government determined that pre-requisites had not been completed for the credits in question and so they are clawing back funding for these units,” said GYRD spokesperson Nicole Merrifield.

This puts schools in a difficult position, as the teaching has already been done, and the money spent on providing the CTS courses. Having to return this money could force cuts in programming, Merrifield said.

“You just have to look at the budgets — a school simply can not file a deficit budget, so you are telling schools that believed they were in balance that they are actually in debt, so they have to go into debt recovery mode.”

“It was a quite a shock to the schools,” Merrifield said, who added that there are a wide variety of reasons that the proper pre-requisites were not recorded in the application for credit funding. 

“In most situations, the pre-requisites were not documented as being completed, but the material had been covered,” she said.

All in all, the decision will cost GYRD high schools $100,000. Some of the larger school boards in Calgary and Edmonton are talking about losses in the millions, Merrifield said.

The GYRD has appealed the province’s decision, arguing that learning outcomes were achieved, the modules taught and resources already expended. In addition, the division believes that Alberta Education ought to provide a grace period of at least one year to allow schools to get their records in order. Finally, the fact that this funding clawback has occurred all across the province has led the GYRD to suggest that accurate and timely information about requirements is not getting to the  schools.

In Jasper, the financial hit is not as significant as in other schools, with Junior/Senior High principal Dale Karpluk reporting that about 24 modules (out of 753 division-wide) were affected by the decision. Still, she’s not happy with the development.

“It seems to be a punitive way to deal with it,” Karpluk said. “One of the things that I think Alberta is trying to do is promote the trades. These (CTS) courses are very expensive to run and it seems like an odd way to encourage high schools to keep offering them.” 

Tracking CTS modules and credits is a “horrendous” process, Karpluk said, adding that she can understand why the pre-requisites are not always recorded accurately or completely.

“Some of these things could be clerical, but the students are doing all the work they need to.”

According to Merrifield, another problem may be arising from the similarities in some of the CTS courses.

“There are pre-requisites before entering mechanics and before entering construction, but the content for these courses is extremely similar, so in some schools we are having only one pre-req course,” she said. When it comes time for Alberta Education to review the credit funding, they don’t recognize this as being an acceptable precursor for both programs.

No matter what happens to the GYRD’s appeal, there’s a chance that this problem could resurface at this time next year. The credits currently in question date back to the 2004-2005 school year.

"They are clawing that back now, and they will likely have a problem with this year’s credits in the future,” Merrifield said.