NLSD Clarifies Provincial Education Tax

Northern Lights Public Schools issued a statement clarifying the Provincial Education tax, as many members of the public may not be aware of the under-workings of the tax.

NLSD Statement: 

Northern Lights Public Schools would like to offer the following points of clarification to address local residents’ concerns and questions:

1. All publicly-funded school boards, whether they are designated as Public (like Northern Lights Public Schools), or Separate (usually Catholic or Francophone), receive funding from Alberta Education based on the number of students enrolled in their schools on September 30^th of any given year. The funding is the same regardless of whether a student is enrolled in a Public or Separate school.
2. Declaring to your municipality that you wish to be identified as Catholic does not affect the amount of funding any of your local school jurisdictions receives. The Separate Catholic school system does not receive “extra” money from property taxes based on the number of people who identify as Catholic in a particular geographic area.
3. Declaring to your municipality that you wish to be identified as Catholic DOES affect whom you can vote for in school board elections. If you declare yourself as Catholic, you can only vote for trustees who are running for election to the Separate Catholic school board. You will not be able to vote for trustees running for election to the Public school board, even if you send your child(ren) to a Public school.

Our full statement is attached to this email and has been posted to our website: http://nlsd.ab.ca/view.php?action=object&id=11513&stream=Homepage%20News