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Alberta’s government is investing $100 million to hire more teachers, educational assistants and specialized support staff to support complex classrooms.
The $100-million investment increases supports across kindergarten to Grade 12, adding new complexity teams for grades 7-12 and targeted training for staff, while improving access to specialized services in rural and remote communities.
“Every student deserves a safe, supportive classroom, and every teacher deserves the tools to succeed. This money will strengthen supports, improve safety and ensure teachers have the resources to manage increasingly complex classrooms,” said Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Education and Childcare in a news release.
Funding will go towards 221 new complexity teams, including 158 for grades 7-12 and 63 new K-6 teams, helping schools respond to growing behavioural complexity and strengthen safe, supportive learning environments.
“Expanding these teams into grades 7 through 12, together with funding for staff training, will strengthen our ability to respond to learning needs across more schools,” said Laura Hack, chair, Calgary Board of Education.
“We appreciate the flexibility to allocate these resources where they will have the greatest impact.”
The $100-million commitment builds on recent provincial actions to reduce class sizes and support complex classrooms, including funding to hire more than 1,400 teachers, and the creation of 476 complexity teams in grades K-6.
Existing complexity teams will continue to provide early, school-based support in elementary grades, while new teams will be expanded to serve students in grades 7-12, providing more specialized services for older students.
These teams will help address complex behavioural and safety needs in higher grades, while connecting classrooms with additional expertise from behaviour specialists, social workers and other specialists.
All public, separate and francophone school jurisdictions are eligible for and will receive at least one additional complexity team.
Teams will be deployed at the school authority level to ensure flexibility, allowing authorities to target supports where needs are greatest, with the ability to respond when local demands change.
The rural and remote component of this new funding will be available to all public, separate and francophone school jurisdictions within rural or remote regions.
Targeted training for teachers, school-based staff, new teachers, complexity teams and administrators will focus on classroom complexity and safety, with an emphasis on preventing, de-escalating and responding to behavioural challenges so staff are better equipped to support safe, effective learning environments.
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