CALGARY—Calgary Board of Education school trustees voted Tuesday to ask the Alberta government to reverse changes to its official legal name, after a report prepared by the board’s chair found the move could come with a hefty price tag.

Last week, a ministerial order from Education Minister Adriana LaGrange went into effect standardizing the official legal titles of school jurisdictions in Alberta. The move has drawn fire for requiring eight jurisdictions to remove “public” from their names, sparking fears about future privatization.

But the government argues the move was made so all jurisdictions would be classified as divisions and have the same powers. This change was included in the Education Act, passed by the United Conservative government earlier this year.

For the Calgary Board of Education (CBE), the change meant being reborn as the Calgary School Division as of Sept. 1.

While the CBE’s board of trustees, who gathered Tuesday for the first meeting of the 2019-20 school year, weren’t presented with a specific cost estimate, the report concluded it would mean a drain on resources. They cited changes that would need to happen to vendor agreements, land titles and other official documents.

“This is about using our resources the best way that we can, and it would be significant if we were not able to be successful in having our corporate name reverted back to the Calgary Board of Education,” said CBE chair Marilyn Dennis.

But Alberta’s Ministry of Education said Tuesday that it won’t approve this request.

“The minister will not approve their request, as this would result in school divisions not having standardized names, which was the point of the change,” said spokesperson Colin Aitchison in an emailed statement.

Complicating things further is a disagreement between the province and the CBE about what the board’s official corporate title is in the first place.

The province cited financial statements from 2017-18 that state the public school jurisdiction’s legal name is Calgary School District No. 19. Meanwhile, the CBE pointed to a ministerial order in 1978 that changed its official title to the Calgary Board of Education.

Aitchison said the CBE, along with other school boards, can still brand themselves to the public, on their websites and in their schools with whatever name they want, so long as their official legal title is changed to match other jurisdictions in Alberta.

But what’s at stake for the CBE is the potential cost of a name change during a school year where unclear funding from the province has meant it is already working on a tighter, more conservative budget.

“It was an administrative change largely to streamline and to simplify. But the impact on us is significant if we’re not able to go back to the Calgary Board of Education name,” Dennis said.

Meanwhile, the Edmonton Public School Board isn’t concerned about the change. Board chair Trisha Estabrooks said the “small amount of money” it will cost won’t affect how it does business, and that the word “public” wasn’t in its official legal title anyways, which changed to the Edmonton School Division last week.

“We still very much are very proud of the fact that we’re public, and that will continue to be part of our name in all public-facing brands and how we interact with our community, our parents and our students. We’re proud to be Edmonton Public Schools,” Estabrooks said.

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Dennis said the CBE will send its request this week to revert to the legal title it had before Sept. 1.

With files from Kevin Maimann

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