The Empire Strikes Back: Or How a School Board Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace School Choice

In our mission to promote the advantages of choice and competition, we've had a high-profile convert.

It's a convert you might least expect; it's a public school board.

Now, we're not saying that this school board has been transformed to have only the purest intentions.

But that's the thing about competition.

It can motivate you to meet the needs of the public, even without the purest intentions.

Elk Island Public Schools (EIPS) has given us fresh proof that choice and competition are more effective than elections and political pressure at holding school boards accountable.

Theirs is a story of being entirely unresponsive and out of touch with the needs of families, but “seeing the light” once they felt the heat of competition.

We mentioned last week, in our email about whether school boards really are accountable to parents, how EIPS was not forthcoming with parents:

Elk Island also promised parents, “There has been no discussion at either the administrative or board level about closing Andrew School.”

Just seven months later - April 20th and 25th, 2023 - the first public meetings were held to discuss the closure of the school.

On May 4th, the Andrew School closure was final.

Since closing Andrew School, EIPS buses the kids who have stayed in the division to Mundare, 32 kilometres away.

The superintendent of Elk Island Public Schools told the school board and the public that it would cost over $3 million to fix the roof and sprinklers of Andrew School.

That was the rationale EIPS gave for why they made the decision to close the rural school with so little consultation.

So little consultation, in fact, that it blindsided their municipal partners who co-owned the building housing Andrew School.

The Village of Andrew responded by buying out Elk Island’s share for $1, then completing the needed repairs for $137,000.

Again, the superintendent of Elk Island Public Schools claimed repairs would cost at least twenty-two times more.

This is a reminder that administration can steer school trustees into the decisions that administration wants by quoting costs that the trustees have no other data to dispute.

If administration is taking its cues more from metro school divisions than the mix of suburban and rural communities they are meant to serve, they may not see the value in smaller schools.

The Village of Andrew, having made the property fit for its educational mission again, has announced a charter school at the site called Andrew Rural Academy.

Andrew Rural Academy will focus on rural applications of STEM - science, technology, engineering, and mathematics - education.

According to the school, 65 students (more than enough for viability) have signed up already, but local parents assure us that significantly more students have signed up now.

That shows plenty of market demand, if you will, among families for a school in Andrew, especially once other unique programs are offered for students.

To be clear, this shows that even if Elk Island Public Schools could not have provided this innovative programming themselves, they could have partnered with local parents to open an alternative program school at the site.

Instead, they failed to meet this need in their community.

But now, Elk Island Public Schools has announced a full-day, every day STEM kindergarten program in the Mundare school (again, 32 kilometers away).

EIPS is even waiving the extra fees they charge for full day, every day kindergarten in the two locations they will be offering it, other than Mundare.

So, EIPS has gone from not responding to this need at all, to seemingly trying to undercut a charter school who saw the need and tried to supply what families were asking for.

A Lamont County councillor has expressed his frustration with the obvious bad faith shown by Elk Island Public Schools toward their rural constituents.

But, like we said, that's the thing about competition.

It can motivate you to meet the needs of the public, even without the purest intentions.

Obviously, school choice holds school boards accountable better than elections do.

Parents clearly wanted this option, but EIPS didn't offer it until forced to by competition.

Elections and traditional political pressure, like public meetings on the subject, didn’t help EIPS see the light.

They had to feel the heat, first, through school choice and competition.

We think Andrew Rural Academy, with the more direct accountability they receive from parents, is likely to attract students in ways EIPS will continue to be too unresponsive to match.

We already see some hints that Andrew Rural Academy understands what parents want and intends to communicate more clearly with us.

If they fail, they will have to shut their doors.

If Elk Island Public Schools fails, they will, if anything, receive more money per student.

But, for as long as they feel the heat of competition, they will be compelled to offer more for families than they would in the absence of competition.

What is true in little Andrew is true for even more rural school boards, the metro boards they want to imitate, and everything in between.

Even bad school boards respond well to good enough incentives.

For instance, we have discussed how the Edmonton Public School Board has long provided a wide variety of alternative programs to hold off competition from charter and independent (private) schools.

They show their heart isn’t in it by interfering with those alternative programs to prevent them from being true alternatives, but competition forces them to be better than their intentions.

Even when the school board doesn’t take the hint, as in Victoria, British Columbia, the existence of other choices forced NDP Premier David Eby to remove the insane school board.

In Ontario, school board insanity runs virtually unchecked by Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford, because virtually no competition leaves families trapped in insane schools.

So, we see yet another way that choice and competition are a rising tide that lifts all boats.

Choice and competition are more effective than elections and political pressure at holding school boards accountable.

While other sources of information about education policy will simply echo the voices that decry competition, we are committed to bringing you a perspective that shows its value.

Will you join us to make sure that the voice of parents, grandparents, teachers, and taxpayers - who see choice and competition as a rising tide that lifts all boats - is heard?

Converting Conflict to Competition,

-Jeff and the Alberta Parents’ Union Team