March Newsletter . . . and more about the budget

I have posted my March newsletter on the School District 63 website. You can access the March newsletter directly by clicking here. In addition to some bouquets for the wonderful coaches, managers and volunteers who support our extracurricular programs I have offered some advice for people in regard to online social networking as well as an overview of how we use our six designated non-instructional (professional development and planning) days in Saanich.

Of greatest urgency, however, is a reminder of processes that the Board of Education has put in place for finalizing our 2009/10 budget. The post below provides more information, including links to the information that we have posted on our website. As you may know, this is a particularly challenging year; we have some very difficult work to do in order to reduce expenditures by 5% and maintain the high quality of programs and services that characterize Saanich. I would urge you, if you are a member of the Saanich learning community, to read further below, then do what you can to contribute to the discussions in person or online.

Budget Reduction Options Up for Commentary

We now have our budget information for 2009/10 and have confirmed our need to reduce the school district budget by $3.6 million next year. Before talking about those necessary and dramatic cuts (see next paragraph), I must say that I appreciate that government came through on its commitment to fund education at the level promised one year ago. During these tought times it was gratifying to see that the education ministry did not see reductions. That said, we remain concerned on two levels. One is that the allocation system seems not to reflect the true needs in districts. The money that is sent may need to be divided up differently. The other is that the relative increase in funding (same money, fewer students) is not keeping up with the real cost of providing educational services. Thus the need to cut. This was rather well captured in the Times Colonists editorial of March 17, 2009. We hope to see a review of the funding model in the coming year and would, of course, be happy to participate.

However, even as we press for provincial dialogue on education funding, we have work to do. Our immediate task is to prepare a balanced budget in May, and we can only do that by cutting $3.6 million worth of programs and services. Make no mistake. This will be a difficult and painful exercise. We have published our list of budget reduction options, along with implications, and are looking for feedback, either through the processes described on our website or directly to budget@sd63.bc.ca, or via responding to this posting. We need all the help we can get. You will see some serious reduction options including eliminating a number of education assistant jobs, reducing by 10 enrolling teachers (after reducing by 6.5 for enrolment decline), reducing the school calendar, closing one of our individual learning centres, and more.

Please contribute to the budget dialogue. After reducing steadily for 12 years, we have hit a cliff unlike any we have encountered before. Thank you for your ongoing support and involvement.