I gather that some of the arguments made in favour of abolishing Alberta’s parallel-to-public Catholic education system are about costs–there’s a redundancy in management, so amalgamating the two services would find the public budget a few extra million after restructuring. And Adriana LaGrange writes a cheery “alternative reality” for the Edmonton Journal about the state of Catholic schools, arguing–among many other things–that the costs probably wouldn’t be lower if we were to amalgamate.
There are a few statements which get a good giggle from me, considering the context of the ACSTA splinter group scandals.
Compare LaGrange’s words here:
The vast majority of Catholic separate and public school boards work together to actualize efficiencies while respecting differences, through shared busing, joint use agreements and joint purchasing partnerships for utilities.
The ACSTA and its member boards oppose the joint use of school buildings with public school boards in any manner.
Or the Edmonton Catholic School Board’s scandals here:
Among that backroom business was a six-month debate over whether to pay Kowalczyk’s legal fees for taking his own colleagues to court in 2012, and how then to pay him in secret.
Edmonton Catholic trustees spent more than $125,000 on external legal fees between 2012 and 2016. In the same time frame, Calgary Board of Education trustees — Alberta’s largest school board — spent $50,000. Edmonton Public Schools says its board had no external legal costs in that time.
Oops!
Of course, such obfuscation is to be expected. LaGrange is the President of ACSTA. But I guess if we can trust the police to investigate themselves then there’s nothing wrong with extending the same courtesy to the Catholics.
-Shiv