A Calgary private school abruptly shut down overnight this fall, citing a “significant and unexpected lack of funding” from the province.
Capstone Engineering Academy was an accredited private school in southeast Calgary with a focus on offering engineering and technology courses. On Oct. 31, parents were surprised to receive a message from Capstone’s principal that evening, informing them the school was closing its doors, effective the same day.
“We were all blindsided,” said Jessi McCartney, a parent of a Capstone student.
“Our kids were out trick-or-treating when we received the message. We had just picked our kids up from school that day, none the wiser.
“We knew that they were going to be heartbroken when we told them that this fantastic school you love isn’t in operation anymore.”
Capstone was the primary school for 12 students in grades 1-9, while also offering engineering and technology courses through distance education to supplement the full-time studies of hundreds of students enrolled in other schools around Calgary.
The school followed the Alberta curriculum with advanced, hands-on classes on STEM subjects, including instruction on topics like programming, robotics and 3D design. The school also offered small class sizes for its full-time students, who could then follow up with independent design and construction of their own projects.
These courses all came to an end in October due to a change in funding from Alberta Education, said Capstone CEO and founder Dean White, who declined an interview request from CBC News.
“These funding changes were announced by Alberta Education weeks after school had started, and after the school invested monies to get the school ready to receive students this fall,” White said via email.
Capstone’s budget summary for the year ending on Aug. 31, 2025, stated that roughly 70 per cent of its revenue came from Alberta Education grants.
White did not confirm to CBC News the exact details around the funding shortfall.
Alberta Education documents show the province’s funding formula for non-primary distance education programming at accredited private schools, such as what Capstone offered to high school students, changed from a base grant of $945 in 2023-24 to $107.17 per completed credit in 2024-25. Capstone’s education plan from earlier this year said it welcomed 914 non-primary students in the 2023-24 school year.
John Jagersma, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools & Colleges in Alberta, said Capstone was the first school he’d seen close during the school year in his decades-long career.
“There’s been a handful of schools that have closed in the last 20 years,” Jagersma said. “But generally, they make a determination as they get toward the end of the year and they inform parents if they’re not going to be there next year.
“What they were doing was outside the box and I applaud them for the initiative. I was hoping it would be successful,” Jagersma said. “There’s a certain value in that concept of trying to make sure that kids are getting really good STEM-based instruction in the early years.”
Since Capstone closed its doors, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said its students have all re-registered in other schools.
“In these extremely rare circumstances, my team is ready to help parents who require assistance,” Nicolaides said via email.
The scrutiny private schools like Capstone face from the province, Nicolaides added, includes providing annual audited financial statements, complying with operating standards, undergoing program audits and supplying annual educational results reporting.
School authorities are expected to prepare their budgets and manage operations in a sustainable manner given the provincial guidelines, he said.
Capstone’s closure left parents in a difficult position: quickly finding new schooling for their children in November.
Capstone offered to co-ordinate with other local private schools to help students find a new place to study. But McCartney noted how disappointing it was to be faced with options that didn’t match the academic rigour of what students had signed up for at the start of the year, or that offered much larger class sizes without the same level of attention from teachers.
Mostly, McCartney said she’s concerned with what she saw as a lack of accountability and support for when a school closes mid-semester.
“It just seems so wrong that any school can open and then shut overnight. It’s so disruptive to the parents and the students,” McCartney said.
While McCartney noted that some parents were still asking about refunds weeks after the school closed, White said most Capstone students paid tuition on a monthly basis or were covered by a scholarship.