The Livingstone Range School Division is dropping a total of 22 teaching positions across the division for the next school year, in response to declining enrolment that continues to affect rural classrooms.
Dick Peterson, chairperson of the school board, says that these cuts are not being made for budgetary reasons. "This is strictly because of declining enrolment," he says.
Peterson notes that with cutbacks from the provincial government, school divisions are being told to use any surplus money they have to cover costs that are above the reduced budget. He says that this surplus money had been set aside for different projects and was previously not free to be used for general operations before now. "We have enough money to get us through this year," he says, and next year they will have to re-evaluate how to allocate their money.

Peterson says that enrolment across the division has been dropping by an average of five percent per year, and that numbers in Crowsnest Pass schools have been declining faster than that average. This prompted the board to make its decision to eliminate positions.
There will be three teaching positions dropped in Crowsnest Pass, one in each school, but Peterson says that this will be done through attrition, not through the firing of Crowsnest teachers. Four local teachers are retiring before next year –– Jane-Ann Reimer, Larry Kutcher, Gladys Ondrus, and Ritch Braun. This will allow the division to cut three positions without layoffs.
Peterson says that they are trying to use this attrition strategy where they can across the division, since eight teachers division-wide are retiring.
He allows that the changes will in theory lead to a higher student-teacher ratio, but says that the declining enrolment over the last several years will mean that overall, the change will be minimal.