An Edmonton public school trustee wants to see if the division can change its registration policy to keep children with lapsed immigration status enrolled in school.
“We know that there are kids who live in Edmonton who may not meet the definition of a resident student, according to provincial law — the Education Act — and who cannot attend school right now,” trustee Sarah Doll said in an interview last week.
Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) trustees will debate a motion from Doll at their meeting on Tuesday. It proposes that a board subcommittee review enrolment policies and recommend how to bring them in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The convention, which Canada ratified in 1991, and Alberta endorsed in 1999, states that public education must be free and compulsory for all children.
However, publicly funded Alberta school staff have told some families they cannot register their children because the child or the parents’ immigration status lapsed.
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Ariana Zapata Zoe Hernandez’s younger siblings are among them. Although the 14-year-old and her 12-year-old brother are enrolled in Edmonton Catholic schools, her two younger siblings, aged seven and nine, are not.
The family fled Mexico and came to Canada but their refugee status expired in 2022. Hernandez said although her family is in the country legally, they did not have the required immigration documents to enrol the younger children in school. She said volunteers tutor the children as a stopgap measure.
Ariana Zapata Zoe Hernandez, 14, has two younger siblings who are not enrolled in school. The family’s refugee status expired before her younger siblings were able to enrol in kindergarten in Edmonton. (Nathan Gross/CBC)
“The parents were the ones who made the decision to come to another country, and the kids had no choice in that,” Hernandez said in an interview last month. “I don’t think the kids should be punished because of their parents’ decisions.
“My parents didn’t feel safe in their home country, so going back isn’t an option.”
In response to questions that CBC News sent to 10 urban school divisions in Alberta last month, those divisions collectively tallied at least 38 temporary resident students whose education costs were previously covered by the province who are now paying international tuition fees while their status is in limbo.
Base international tuition in Edmonton and Calgary public schools is $13,500 per year.
School division spokespeople pointed to the province’s Education Act, along with the funding manual, which say a student’s ability to receive a funded education hinges on the immigration status of the student and their parents.
In an interview last month, Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he stands by the legislation, which defines who qualifies as a “resident” student entitled to free public education.
“I firmly believe in the Education Act as is written, and believe that you must have valid and legal immigration status in order to receive education,” he said.
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The provincial government also passed a law last year saying Alberta would ignore international agreements Canada had signed as they apply to areas of provincial jurisdiction, such as education, unless the province passes legislation adopting the agreement.
CBC News asked Alberta’s Ministry of Children and Family Services if the current government endorses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In response, Sam Basden, a spokesperson for the ministry, issued a statement Monday that said Alberta law, programs and policies “support the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
An August policy brief prepared by the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights suggests Alberta’s law is out of sync with other large Canadian provinces.
Ontario’s Education Act prevents schools from denying a child’s enrolment due to the family’s immigration status. Quebec created an exemption in 2013 allowing non-resident students to access free public education. And British Columbia law defines a resident student based on where a child ordinarily resides.
The John Humphrey Centre policy brief says there are costs and risks associated with denying temporary resident students an education, including the chance someone may launch a legal challenge against the province, arguing the law violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Rhiannon Rutherford, a volunteer with the Alberta Workers Association for Research and Education, which runs the “Education4All” campaign advocating for children denied access to school, said she believes the provincial government’s reticence to reconsider the law is unsurprising in the face of an Oct. 19 referendum that seeks a mandate that could make life in Alberta more expensive and difficult for newcomers.
Rutherford added that she worries immigrants are being unfairly focused on as Alberta faces pressures when it comes health, education and social services.
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The provincial government will fund a student’s education if a family can show proof it applied to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to extend its temporary residency, and the child’s study permit, within 90 days of it expiring.
IRCC data shows processing times can be long to consider these applications. The department’s website says there are more than 26,000 people waiting for a ruling on their study permit extension.
Questions to school divisions about how long families can keep children enrolled while their application is being processed, and how frequently they have to provide proof that IRCC is still working on their applications, varied by school division.
The federal government also provided conflicting statements about children’s right to an education.
The IRCC website says children must have a valid study permit or visitor record to be in Canada.
In response to a question about Alberta’s response to some viewing the province as being at odds with a UN convention, IRCC spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald said “children whose immigration status has lapsed are legally protected and cannot be denied access to public primary or secondary education.”
However, when asked about Alberta children not attending school due to their immigration status, Taous Ait, press secretary for federal Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Lena Metlege Diab, said provinces and territories are responsible for deciding who is eligible to enrol in school, including when it comes to questions of funding.
In May 2025, the EPSB wrote to Nicolaides, asking his government to change the Education Act to allow funding to flow to students with expired immigration status.
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This June, Alberta School Boards Association members voted to advocate that the province provide a fully funded public education to children who are “ordinarily resident” in Alberta, which would align with B.C. law.
Doll said if the province is reluctant to change the law, Edmonton Public Schools should focus on what it can control, which includes student registration, and how much the division charges them to attend.
“Every kid who is out of school right now is really, really important to me,” she said.
Doll said she doesn’t know how long a policy review might take, and can’t predict how the EPSB would respond to recommended changes.
CBC News asked other public school trustees for interviews on the topic. Those who responded said rules only allow the trustee who proposes a motion to speak publicly about it before it goes to a meeting for debate.
A report that school division administrators prepared for EPSB trustees says that Alberta’s weighted education funding formula already leaves Edmonton Public Schools short of money for the equivalent of 721 full-time students this school year. The division has the equivalent of 119,000 full-time students.
It is unclear how many school-age children are in the province and not enrolled in any school program. The Education Act says any resident child aged six to 15, who has at least one Alberta resident parent, must be enrolled.
School divisions struggled to provide CBC News with precise counts of temporary resident students who were enrolled last year, were not graduating and who did not return to school this fall.
Although Edmonton Public Schools said 500 students who fit this description did not return, a spokesperson said a family could have moved away or enrolled the child in a different school system.
In an email to CBC News, EPSB spokesperson Kim Smith said families aren’t required to provide a reason for not returning, and the division isn’t required to collect this information.
“Anecdotally, we know that some students don’t enrol with the division because of expired permits; however, we don’t have a definitive number as students leave for a number of reasons,” she wrote.
Similarly, 400 students did not return to schools in the Calgary Board of Education, and 158 did not return to schools in the Calgary Catholic School District.
The Edmonton Catholic School Division and the Fort McMurray Public School Division each said they know of one student with expired documentation who did not re-enrol for that reason.
Doll said she hopes if her motion passes that Edmonton Public Schools can find a way to track this information.
“There’s also the question of how many kids out there who aren’t trying to enrol,” she said.
Rhiannon Rutherford is a volunteer with the Alberta Workers Association for Research and Education (AWARE), which advocates for migrant families. (Submitted by Rhiannon Rutherford)
Rutherford said many temporary residents in Alberta are working minimum wage jobs and cannot afford international school tuition, even if the often-crowded schools could make space for them.
She lauded Doll’s proposal, and said she hopes it passes and that trustees on other school boards follow suit.
Rutherford said it’s frustrating to see school boards lacking meaningful information about why temporary resident students don’t return to school. The buck-passing between different levels of government is unacceptable, she said.
Rutherford said with federal immigration policy constantly shifting, families waiting a long time for IRCC to process their applications, and border officials increasingly enforcing immigration law has left some temporary residents navigating bureaucratic hurdles while also fearing deportation.
“Now is the time to be fronting compassion, and … trying to keep as many kids in school as possible.”
