Calgary teachers to be laid off, Edmonton numbers still unknown

Hundreds of Alberta teachers are about to lose their jobs.

The Calgary Board of Education says it will be cutting another 324 positions, including over 200 hundred teaching positions.

The board says it has no other option, as it tries to absorb a $61.7M budgetary shortfall for the next school year.

The layoffs are on top of 170 jobs the board announced it would be cutting last month. The result is expected to be much larger class sizes in the next school year.

The announcement has some in Edmonton concerned about what the impact could be in our city.

Although few expect the problem here to be as dramatic as in the Calgary public schools, no specific numbers are being tossed about yet in Edmonton.

Edmonton Public says its budget will be presented April 26th. After that, there might be a better idea of what that means to teacher numbers.

Edmonton Catholic says it has to make up $9.5M this year. All this stems from the provincial budget.

By most accounts, it was a tough budget for education. Funding for some programs were cut. Now is the time when boards decide what the provincial decisions will mean at local level.

"The possibility of job layoffs is definitely there but we really won't know until we get closer to the budget day of June 30th." says Catholic Schools spokesperson Lori Nagy.

Grande Prairie and Lethbridge have both warned of layoffs as well.

The Alberta Teachers' Association says it is worried. The group is now predicting roughly one thousand teaching jobs will be lost across the province.

The ATA says it hopes the province can come up with more money so layoffs can be avoided. The province today said don't count on it. These are tough times and there is no more money to offer.

School boards have until the end of June to finalize their budgets for the upcoming school year.