Alberta education minister concerned about private school funding petition

New Minister of Education and Childcare, Demetrios Nicolaides, swears the oath of office in Calgary, Alta., Friday, May 16, 2025.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Alberta’s education minister says cutting government funding to private schools — a move one Calgary teacher is hoping to put to a vote — would only escalate the pressure faced by the province’s strained public school system.

“We’re talking about impacting tens of thousands of students and creating a situation where they would have to immediately seek alternative programming,” Demetrios Nicolaides said in an interview Wednesday.

“That would create massive pressure on our public system, which, of course, is already under immense pressure.”

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Alberta’s chief electoral officer signed off Tuesday on a proposed referendum question put forward by Calgary teacher Alicia Taylor.

The question reads: “Should the Government of Alberta end its current practice of allocating public funds to accredited independent (private) schools?”

Taylor will need to appoint a financial officer to oversee her campaign and collect 177,000 signatures in 120 days to get her policy proposal on a ballot.

About five per cent, or $461 million, of the government’s K-12 education budget this year is set aside for private schools, which provincial law calls independent schools.

The budget forecasts that number to jump to more than $500 million next year.

The province estimates just under 50,000 students attend independent schools.

While these schools are allowed to charge tuition, provincial funding agreements require them to teach the same subject matter as public schools.

Taylor was not immediately available to comment. In her application to the electoral officer, Taylor wrote, “the majority of Albertans agree that public funds should only be used to fund public schools.”

She also wrote that diverting dollars set aside for private schools would alleviate issues in the public system, which came to a halt Monday on account of a provincewide teachers’ strike.

The strike started, in part, over dissatisfaction with how the province planned to address issues such as classroom overcrowding and insufficient supports for students.

Nicolaides said the Alberta government supports private schools and the choice to allocate funding to them, but if an eventual referendum passes, the government would act accordingly.

“At the end of the day, as a citizen-initiated petition, Albertans will have the final say,” Nicolaides said. “We’ll take direction from Albertans.”

Opposition NDP education critic Amanda Chapman didn’t say whether she supported Taylor’s position.

Chapman, in an email Wednesday, instead called on the government to increase Alberta’s per-student funding in the public system. 

Statistics Canada and the Alberta Teachers’ Association say Alberta’s per-student rate is the lowest in the country, while its private school rate — which comes out to 70 per cent of the public rate — sits on the other end of the scale.

John Jagersma, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools and Colleges in Alberta, agreed with Nicolaides and said Taylor’s proposal would only exacerbate problems in the public system.

“The argument doesn’t work unless she says she’s willing to say, ‘We’ll take the money away, but we don’t want the kids,’” Jagersma said, adding the money given to private schools goes further per student than it does in the public system.

He said the funding difference means that even if the full $461 million budgeted for private schools this year is put back into the public system, the province would need to add at least $5,000 more per student returning to public schools.

“We haven’t caused the concerns that the teachers are carrying today, and attacking us isn’t the solution to this either,” he said.

He said he thinks many Albertans have an inaccurate perception of the schools his organization represents, giving the example that these schools aren’t for-profit enterprises, as it would make them ineligible for provincial funding.

“We’ve always said we’re part of the public system,” he said. “We’re doing the work alongside charter schools, francophone schools, Catholic schools, a whole range of different choices in public schools.

“That’s why we’ve opposed the word private for so long.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2025.