EDMONTON — Edmonton public school trustees have voted to push Alberta's government to make legislative changes to allow undocumented kids to enrol in school and increase education funding accordingly.
The unanimous vote Tuesday came after advocacy groups sent speakers and affected children to months of school board meetings to bring the issue to light.
Thirteen-year-old Areana Capata was one such speaker. At a meeting last month, she told trustees that she has three siblings who haven't been able to attend school in two years.
"How will they go to college, get jobs they love, or even feel confident in themselves if they're constantly being denied the chance to grow up?" Capata told trustees.
"The worst part is it's not their fault. No child chooses to be undocumented."
Trustee Jan Sawyer said during Tuesday's meeting that it's critical the school division does "everything it can" to ensure undocumented children get an education.
"That's why we're here, because we believe it's essential," Sawyer said.
Whitney Haynes, the executive director of the Alberta Workers Association for Research and Education, said in an interview her organization is working with nine children in the Edmonton area, though she knows more are out there.
Haynes said not every situation is simple. She said Canadian residency status can be a fluctuating process and while some parents come to Canada through unofficial channels, there are other situations where parents with temporary work visas are between jobs or when a work permit expires.
"Once that expires, then they're undocumented," Haynes said, adding that when a parent's permit expires, so does the mechanism that allows their kids to attend Alberta schools.
"These kids are often under threat in school, but they had never been kicked out in the past. Just recently (we) started seeing them being kicked out."
Haynes said Edmonton's Catholic school board has been more likely to kick students out for lapsed visa status, and her organization has been trying to work with the division but has been met with silence.
Edmonton Catholic spokesperson Christine Meadows said in an email that it was aware of Tuesday's vote and that it's "committed to welcoming all students to the fullest extent allowed by provincial legislation and policy."
Meadows said her division was pleased to see a motion to bring the advocacy item forward to the provincial school boards association also pass on Tuesday.
"It’s important that school boards across the province have the opportunity to discuss complex issues like this one together," she said.
A report prepared for Tuesday's Edmonton Public School trustees meeting said besides wanting the division to advocate to the province, the division also received requests to implement a "sanctuary policy" where schools could enrol undocumented children regardless of their residency status.
It says under Alberta legislation that isn't possible, whereas Ontario's education laws actually require admission regardless of legal residency status.
Alberta's Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides didn't answer emailed questions about if he plans to follow through on the request or if he'd meet with the trustees, but he said most foreign children are eligible for public education in the province.
"This includes children of temporary residents as well as families with refugee status, including those claiming refugee status after they have arrived," Nicolaides said.
"As a rule, the only instance where a child’s education would not be covered is if they were arriving as a tourist or visitor."
Nicolaides also said "there is a difference between having a right to access education and a right for that education to be delivered free of charge."
Alberta's Education Act stipulates that only students who are legal residents of Alberta, and who have at least one parent that is a resident of Alberta, are eligible to receive a publicly funded education.
However, non-Alberta resident children who are legal residents elsewhere in Canada can attend public schools in Edmonton — for a fee.
"Since the division does not receive per-student provincial funding for these ineligible students, the fee is required to help cover the cost of providing educational programming," reads a report from earlier this month by Edmonton Public's superintendent of schools, Darrel Robertson.
Robertson's report said the fee for the current school year is just over $10,000, and noted that two non-resident students from Nunavut were registered in Edmonton public schools this year.
The report says there's also a fee, which is higher, for international students.
The director of the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, Renee Vaugeois, whose organization has been part of the advocacy campaign, said there wasn't a difference as Nicolaides described.
"Under the (United Nations) Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly all children, especially the primary school level up to Grade 12, have the right to education," Vaugeois said, noting Alberta formally endorsed the convention in 1999.
"We've ratified that convention. That is international binding law but the Alberta Education Act is written in a way to exclude certain people."
Vaugeois said she was thrilled to see the Edmonton Public School trustees vote the way they did, but noted nothing is going to change unless Alberta's government gets on board.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
