Foothills School Division Annual Budget

Our 2024-2025 Budget was approved by the Board of Trustees on May 29, 2024

View the 2024-2025 Budget Summary here

View the 2024-2025 Budget Infographic here

The Foothills School Division Lead Team has completed a thorough review of the stakeholder engagement feedback collected throughout the year. FSD received several responses to the Ideas that Make Cents engagement opportunity as well as the FSD Assurance Survey that asked partners in education to identify funding priorities. We asked our community to prioritize where we should invest our funds and create efficiencies. Here are the significant responses below:

• Maintain frontline staff wherever possible (teachers and educational assistants)
• Leverage parent and community volunteers (coaching, traffic guards, fundraising)
• Minimize transportation routes, find efficiencies
• Reduce professional learning days
• Increase advocacy efforts to improve funding in schools
• Facility rentals
• Increase recycling and sustainability programs
• Boundary reviews to equalize school utilization rates

Changes & Initiatives 

• The Alberta Education Assurance Funding Model and changes to the funding framework, include changes to requirements on minimums and maximums on reserve levels.
• A focus on supporting the key priorities identified in our Education Plan
• Insurance premium reduction by $118,000
• A decrease in enrolment throughout the Division. This is in part due to delayed development in growing municipalities and decreasing birth rate in the region.
• Continued academic supports to address learning disruptions and to narrow learning gaps.
• Ongoing development and necessary increase of youth mental health supports. Partnering with CASA to host a CASA Classroom that will support acute mental health needs for students in grades 6-9 from across the division.
• Adjusting school leadership allocations to best serve school communities.
• Continued focus on enhancing the wellness and well-being of our students, staff team, families, and communities.
• The Foothills School Division continues to provide high-quality professional development for teachers. Our priorities continue to target designing engaging learning for students through authentic, relevant learning opportunities, providing differentiated instruction as well as quality assessment practices.
• The province continues to promote and facilitate an increased awareness in First Nation, Métis, and Inuit education. Changes to curriculum and focusing on the Truth and Reconciliation recommendations continue to play a part within the work of The Foothills School Division.
• Advancing community partnerships by placing education at the centre of a flourishing Foothills community.