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Barb Silva, spokeswoman for Support Our Students which represents more than 2,000 parents, estimates big city boards could be facing anywhere between $40 million to $50 million less.

Photo by Wil Andruschak / Wil Andruschak

And with teachers’ salaries funded at an average of $100,000, Silva added, the cut could translate to about 400-500 teachers.

“When you see what’s happening in rural areas, where you see shortfalls of up to $10 million, you know we will see much bigger shortfalls in Calgary,” Silva said.

“This is coming. And it’s the result of a lazy budget, where all they did was take the same amount of funding as last year, and then calculated everything else out.

“So we’ll see much larger class sizes, we’ll see more kids falling through the cracks, and we’ll see kids not getting the supports they deserve.”

Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, agreed that as more local school districts come to terms with reductions in their class size grants, many will have to turn to job cuts.

“When school boards are seeing these shortfalls, that will translate into teaching jobs lost, and that impacts class size and supports for students.”

Schilling added it will also result in the loss of lower-priority programs like drama, physical education or music, particularly in smaller, rural areas.

CBE officials have said they won’t speak to the provincial budget until early next week.

On Friday, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange will announce funding for school projects at Nose Creek School in northeast Calgary.