Board faces more cuts

Trying to find nearly $3 million to cut from the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board’s next budget diverts the board from its mission to achieve successful outcomes from its students, Jamie Stevens says.
The school board’s New Glasgow representative says he disputes Education Minister Ramona Jennex’s claims that the cuts put students and learning first while recognizing continued declining student enrolments.
Jennex announced Friday that the province’s school boards will be expected to find savings of 1.3 per cent on average, or $13.4 million, on a $1.1 billion budget. That includes a 1.7 per cent drop in funding for Chignecto-Central before rising wage and inflation costs the board will also have to absorb.
“I’m disappointed we have to spend so much time justifying what we have,” he said.
“It’s not a very good feeling. We should all be on the same side in discussing how we can increase students’ success.”
Jennex said the funding targets invest in the classroom and protect special education and other priorities, while per student funding will increase and average class sizes should decline.
The 1.3 per cent cut is less than the boards were asked to find last year, she said. Jennex also noted the oft repeated refrain by the Dexter government that funding for school boards increased by more than $320 million or 43 per cent from 2000-01 to 2010-11, even as enrolment dropped by almost 30,000 students. Enrolments in the province will drop this year by more than 2,200 students, or 1.7 per cent. But Stevens said further cuts will impact schools and students in a negative way.
“When you start putting off replacing things – assuming that buckets are cheaper than roofs – you can only do that so long,” he said.
“If teaching staff is reduced, classes get larger. It’s very challenging for teachers and children to have such a varying degree of abilities in the same class.”
School boards are absorbing higher costs to operate new schools and paying more for fuel, Stevens said. “New schools cost more than old schools,” he said. “We use a lot more power to meet higher ventilation standards.”
Under conditions Jennex outlined in a letter to school board chairpersons, boards will be asked to reduce teaching staff through attrition and declining enrolment and cuts its consultants by half in 2013-14. The province is increasing the allocation for special education, including supports for children with autism, by $12.2 million
The province is maintaining the cap on class size from Primary to Grade 3, but boards will have the flexibility to adjust the cap to avoid combined classes when appropriate.