Various school boards across British Columbia, including School District 27, will receive more funding, beginning in the next school year.
The education ministry has increased the total operating funding for school districts to $4.721 billion in 2011/12 and $4.724 billion in 2012/13, following recommendations from a B.C. School Trustees’ Association committee.
While not all school boards will necessarily benefit from the funding increases, School District 27 (SD27) chair Will Van Osch says many schools in the South Cariboo appear to fit some of the criteria.
One new funding supplement recognizes special transportation needs of students in relation to their school locations, and a boost in small community funding will see an estimated $1.5-million increase for small, rural and remote elementary schools.
The ministry’s announcement is “somewhat vague,” so SD27 won’t know how much it might receive, Van Osch says, adding he believes more funds will be allocated here.
The school board chair adds the ministry’s announcement was, as usual, timely.
In the middle of a teacher’s strike when the school boards are working to improve public opinion, funding announcements are “good,” he says, but this one leaves districts “in limbo” by not providing any details beyond the bulk funding amounts and framework.
One of the best aspects is the small communities grant, he explains, to be available for rural and remote schools.
“This grant [has] a factor there for elementary and secondary schools that are located further than 40 kilometres away from any other school. So, we should be in line for some increase for that factor.”
In areas where vulnerable student populations have increased, the province will supplement the CommunityLINK grant through an additional $5 million in 2012/13 and $11 million in 2013/14.
CommunityLINK funds support meal and snack programs, child and youth workers, community schools, literacy and the healthy schools initiative for vulnerable students, Van Osch explains.
“It will depend on which districts have more vulnerable students. I think our district is fairly vulnerable; in fact, and I think the ministry knows that as well.”
Cariboo-Chilcotin Teachers’ Association president Joan Erb says she doesn’t like the aspect of linking funding to vulnerable student populations, as it puts teachers in different union locals in competition to collect evidence to demonstrate who should gain funding for their school.
“We have to prove that we have more vulnerable students, and that our needs are greater, than another local.”
The $3-million increase in education funding from 2012/13 over 2011/12 is less than one-10th of one per cent of the total budget of $4.474 billion, she says, adding inflation runs at three per cent.
“It is pitting local against local over scraps.”
The recognition by the province, however, that rural communities have unique needs for vulnerable students is “great,”, Erb notes, but the process to obtain the funds is “complicated.”
Van Osch says the ministry’s ambiguous wording “creates as many questions as it answers.”
“We won’t know really until March when they do their budgeting, which is a bit of a bummer.”
The province’s news release announcing these and other changes stated those districts experiencing enrolment decline will now be protected to at least 98.5 per cent of the previous autumn’s funding level.
However, Van Osch says the previous funding protection was at 100 per cent.
