Education
Red Deer Catholic Regional School Board approves balanced budget and 2.9% student enrollment increase

News release from Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools
The Board of Trustees approve the 2023/2024 school year budget and Division Education Plan
On Friday, May 26, the Board of Trustees approved the 2023-2024 school year budget and the 2023-2026 Division Education Plan – Year Two Implementation Adjustments, at their Regular Board Meeting.
2023-2024 Budget:
The Board of Trustees approved a balanced budget with a projected increase in student enrollment of 2.9 per cent. Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) strives to maintain a fiscally responsibleĀ budget with the main goal of ensuring our resources are directed toward having the greatest impact in the classroom and continue to provide a quality, faith-based education to students.
āThe 2023-2024 school year budget is reflective of the Boardās continued focus on innovation, strategic planning, mental wellness and permeation of our faith,” said Board Chair, Anne Marie Watson at Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools. āIn addition to these priorities, the Board of Trustees and Senior Administration worked collaboratively to ensure budget decisions were also aligned with the Division Education Plan, Strategic Development Plan and the areas of focus provided by Alberta Education.ā
The 2023-2024 budget will be submitted to Alberta Education on May 31, 2023.
Division Education Plan:
RDCRS is currently in the second year of the 2023 ā 2026 Division Education Plan. This plan guides the strategic direction and supports the three Board of Trustees Strategic Imperatives, including:
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Mental health and safety
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Purposefully, tangibly, and visibly demonstrate our faith, and
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Build a workplace culture of engagement, empowerment and innovation
The Division Education Plan was drafted following active engagement with community stakeholders in central Alberta, utilizing interviews to help develop these board priorities and link these with the Division Education Plan. Moving forward, RDCRS will continue to engage with, and prioritize, RDCRS community partners and stakeholders through a collaborative approach to foster successful teaching and learning outcomes. To view the approved Division Education Plan, please click here.
Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools serves over 10,085 students in 21 schools in Red Deer, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds. It also supports the learning of over 600 students in a Home Education Program. The Division is committed to serving children and parents with a complete offering of learning opportunities delivered within the context of Catholic teachings and within the means of the Division.
Autism
Autism Rates Reach Unprecedented Highs: 1 in 12 Boys at Age 4 in California, 1 in 31 Nationally

Ā Popular Rationalism
James Lyons-Weiler
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released its 2025 report from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, and the findings are alarming: autism spectrum disorder (ASD) now affects 1 in 31 American 8-year-oldsāthe highest rate ever recorded.
For boys, the numbers are even more staggering: 1 in 20 nationwide, and 1 in 12.5 in California. The report, which tracks children born in 2014, reveals a crisis growing in severity and complexity, yet broadly unacknowledged in the national discourse.
Autism has become a public health crisis of urgent concern,ā the report states plainly. And yet, government agencies have offered no new national action plan, and media coverage remains anemic.
Rapidly Accelerating Trends
In just two years, autism prevalence among 8-year-olds rose 17%, from 1 in 36 to 1 in 31. This is not an anomaly. Since the CDC began tracking autism in children born in 1992, prevalence has increased nearly fivefold, defying theories that attribute the rise solely to broader diagnostic criteria or increased awareness.
The Impact of SB277 on Autism Prevalence in California
In 2015, California enacted Senate Bill 277 (SB277), which went into effect on July 1, 2016. This legislation eliminated the stateās personal belief exemption (PBE) for childhood vaccinations, making it one of only three U.S. states at the timeāalongside Mississippi and West Virginiaāto require full compliance with the CDC-recommended vaccine schedule for school entry, except in cases of formally approved medical exemption.
While the primary intent of SB277 was to increase vaccination rates and try to reduce outbreaks of communicable diseases like measles, its implementation has coincided with a continuedāand arguably acceleratedārise in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses in the state. Data drawn from the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) and CDCās Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network offer a timeline of prevalence rates before and after the law’s enactment:
BetweenĀ 2014 and 2017, ASD prevalence among young children in California increased fromĀ 0.86% to 1.18%āaĀ 37.2% increaseĀ in just three years. By 2020, according to CDC ADDM surveillance,Ā 4.5% of 8-year-oldsĀ in California had an autism diagnosisāthe highest prevalence among all U.S. monitoring sites.
Ā Percent Increase Post-SB277Ā (2016 to 2020):
From 1.08% (2016) to 4.5% (2020) =Ā 316.7% increase
This dramatic rise cannot be definitively attributed to SB277 alone, but its temporal proximity to the policy changeāwhich effectively compelled full vaccine schedule compliance across all demographic groupsāraises serious questions. Notably, this increase occurred within Californiaās already robust autism tracking infrastructure (CDDS), known for conservative case identification that focuses on children with moderate to severe impairment requiring lifelong services.
While correlation does not imply causation, the magnitude and timing of Californiaās autism surge post-SB277 should compel further independent investigation, particularly given that:
- SB277 removed opt-out options for thousands of previously unvaccinated or selectively vaccinated children;
- The increase is most visible in 4-year-old cohorts tracked soon after the law took effect;
- California’s autism rates now exceed 1 in 12 for boys.
In light of these findings, California may now serve not only as a terrible national model for vaccine complianceābut also as a bellwether for unintended consequences of compulsory public health policy.
Alarming Trends in IQ
Contrary to such assumption of ASD leading to giftedness, the ADDM data also show that the proportion of children with higher IQs is actually decreasing, while the share of children with intellectual disability (IQ ⤠70) has risen. Nearly 2 out of 3 children (64%) diagnosed with autism in this cohort fall below the IQ 85 threshold, indicating moderate to severe impairmentā.
These are hard realities that many will find unacceptable. Still, nationally, nearly 40% (39.6%) of 8-year-olds with ASD had IQ ⤠70. Another 24.2% had borderline IQ (71ā85). 36.1% had IQ > 85.
Since autism has a motor neuron impairment, demonstrated IQ may be an inexact measure of actual intelligence, as Spellers The Movie has taught the world.
From a clinical viewpoint, the ADDM reportās data quietly demolish the idea that autism incidence increases are driven by mild or high-functioning cases. Since the early 2000s, the proportion of cases with average or high IQ has dropped, while those with intellectual disability have surged. This trendānow reaching nearly 64%āindicates that autismās rise is not a matter of greater sensitivity in diagnosis. Rather, it appears we are witnessing a real increase in biologically significant, disabling neurodevelopmental injury.
Reversal of Historic Ethnodemographic Trends
The report presents data on racial disparity that now represents a reversal:
Asian/Pacific Islander (3.75%), Black (3.63%), Hispanic (3.58%), and Multiracial (3.27%) 8-year-olds are now more likely to be identified with autism than White children (2.77%)ā
This is a complete reversal of pre-2018 trends, where White children had the highest identification rates. Children from low-income neighborhoods had higher prevalence of ASD than those from high-income areas in several states, e.g., Utah and Wisconsinā
The California Signal: A Harbinger of Whatās to Come?
San Diego, California, stands out as a sentinel siteāand a warning. According to Supplementary Table 8 of the report, 8.87% of 4-year-old boys in California are diagnosed with autism. Further breakdown shows even more troubling disparities:
- Black boys: ~12%
- Hispanic boys: ~10.5%
- Asian boys: ~9%
- White boys: ~5.3%
These numbers imply that 1 in 8 to 1 in 10 young boys of color in California may carry an autism diagnosis by the time they reach second gradeā.
Are Environmental Triggers Driving This?
One overlooked possibility is that cumulative exposuresāincluding the full CDC childhood vaccine schedule, lockdown-era developmental disruption, and coexisting toxicantsāmay act in concert to dysregulate immune and neurological development. Californiaās 2016 vaccine mandate removed all non-medical exemptions, making full compliance unavoidable for most working families. This timing intersects directly with birth years showing the steepest autism rises. If these policy changes are contributing, even partly, to this epidemiological shift, they demand urgent investigationānot blind defense.
The demographic disparities further reinforce the environmental hypothesis. Among 4-year-olds, autism rates among children of color now exceed those of White children by 40ā90%, depending on the group and regionā.
Public Health Policies Under Scrutiny
Importantly, Californiaās strict mandateāwhich bars children from school or daycare without full vaccinationācreates a uniquely high-exposure environment for children whose families cannot afford alternatives. These children are also more likely to be Black or Hispanic, compounding the already sharp disparities now seen in ASD prevalence. In San Diegoās 2018 birth cohort, over 1 in 10 Black and Hispanic boys have an autism diagnosis at age four. The notion that this simply reflects ābetter identificationā strains all credibility.
Additionally, pandemic-era lockdowns, prolonged school closures, and extended masking requirements in California may have played a compounding role in disrupting normal developmental pathways for toddlers and young children during formative yearsā.
The Cost of Inaction
The fiscal and societal burden of autism is already astronomical. A 2020 economic model projected U.S. autism-related costs could exceed $5.5 trillion per year by 2060 if trends continue unmitigated. That estimate did not anticipate the rapid acceleration seen in this latest data.
Your tax dollars have funded years of futile autism genetics research that has not led to any prevention, mitation or treatment, and any given individual genes from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) still explain only a sliver of ASD heritability. Meanwhile, evidence continues to build around plausible environmental and iatrogenic mechanismsāoxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and aluminum adjuvants, among othersāwithout serious investment in confirming or ruling them out. If the CDC were tracking causation with the same rigor it tracks prevalence, we might already have answers.
A Turning Point?
Public health leadership now faces a choice: double down on statistical obfuscation, or finally confront the rising tide of childhood neurological injury. The tools existāretrospective cohort comparisons, machine learning to detect risk patterns, causal inference modeling of environmental exposures, and most critically, honest, open-ended research. The CDC and NIH must stop chasing only genetic ghosts and start investigating the real, tangible environmental shifts that mirror this crisis in time.
For decades, the CDC, NIH, and IOM have promoted the idea that the rise in autism is primarily diagnostic, while excluding or downplaying environmental and iatrogenic hypotheses. But the current dataāshowing accelerating prevalence, worsening severity, and growing racial disparitiesāmake this position untenable. It is now clear that narrative closure, not causal closure, has been guiding public messaging. The refusal to explore vaccine adjuvants, prenatal toxic exposures, chronic immune activation, and regulatory policy failures reflects a broken system more committed to preserving public confidence than discovering the truth.
In a striking statement during an April 2025 Cabinet meeting, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared,
āBy September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.ā
The promise represents a historic shift in federal toneāmarking the first time in decades that a sitting health official has committed to openly investigating all plausible causes of autism, including environmental and iatrogenic exposures.
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Education
Schools should focus on falling math and reading gradesānot environmental activism

From the Fraser Institute
In 2019 Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trusteesĀ passedĀ a āclimate emergencyā resolution and promised to develop a climate action plan. Not only does the TDSB now have an entireĀ departmentĀ in their central office focused on this goal, but it also publishes an annual climate actionĀ report.
Imagine you were to ask a random group of Canadian parents to describe the primary mission of schools. Most parents would say something along the lines of ensuring that all students learn basic academic skills such as reading, writing and mathematics.
Fewer parents are likely to say that schools should focus on reducing their environmental footprints, push students to engage in environmental activism, or lobby for Canada to meet the 2016 Paris Agreementās emission-reduction targets.
And yet, plenty of school boards across Canada are doing exactly that. For example, the Seven Oaks School Division in Winnipeg is currently conducting a comprehensiveĀ auditĀ of its environmental footprint and intends to develop a climate action plan to reduce its footprint. Not only does Seven Oaks have a senior administrator assigned to this responsibility, but each of its 28 schools has a designated climate action leader.
Other school boards have gone even further. In 2019 Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trusteesĀ passedĀ a āclimate emergencyā resolution and promised to develop a climate action plan. Not only does the TDSB now have an entireĀ departmentĀ in their central office focused on this goal, but it also publishes an annual climate actionĀ report. The mostĀ recent reportĀ is 58 pages long and covers everything from promoting electric school buses to encouraging schools to gain EcoSchools certification.
Not to be outdone, the Vancouver School District (VSD) recently published itsĀ Environmental Sustainability Plan, which highlights the many green initiatives in its schools. This plan states that the VSD should be the āgreenest, most sustainable school district in North America.ā
Some trustees want to go even further. Earlier this year, the British Columbia School Trustees AssociationĀ releasedĀ its Climate Action Working Group report that calls on all B.C. school districts to āprioritize climate change mitigation and adopt sustainable, impactful strategies.ā It also says that taking climate action must be a ācore partā of school board governance in every one of these districts.
Apparently, many trustees and school board administrators think that engaging in climate action is more important than providing students with a solid academic education. This is an unfortunate example of misplaced priorities.
Thereās an old saying that when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Organizations have finite resources and can only do a limited number of things. When schools focus on carbon footprint audits, climate action plans and EcoSchools certification, they invariably spend less time on the nuts and bolts of academic instruction.
This might be less of a concern if the academic basics were already understood by students. But they arenāt. According to the most recent data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the math skills of Ontario studentsĀ declinedĀ by the equivalent of nearly two grade levels over the last 20 years while reading skills went down by about half a grade level. The downward trajectory was even sharper inĀ B.C., with a more than two grade level decline in math skills and a full grade level decline in reading skills.
If any school board wants to declare an emergency, it should declare an academic emergency and then take concrete steps to rectify it. The core mandate of school boards must be the education of their students.
For starters, school boards should promote instructional methods that improve student academic achievement. This includes using phonics to teach reading, requiring all students toĀ memorizeĀ basic math facts such as the times table, and encouraging teachers to immerse students in aĀ knowledge-richĀ learning environment.
School boards should also crack down on studentĀ violenceĀ and enforce strict behaviour codes. Instead of kickingĀ police officersĀ out of schools for ideological reasons, school boards should establish productive partnerships with the police. No significant learning will take place in a school where students and teachers are unsafe.
Obviously, thereās nothing wrong with school boards ensuring that their buildings are energy efficient or teachers encouraging students to take care of the environment. The problem arises when trustees, administrators and teachers lose sight of their primary mission. In the end, schools should focus on academics, not environmental activism.
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