Thames Valley DSB passes $1B budget

The Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB)  made a billion-dollar decision Tuesday night. Trustee passed the budget, creating a roadmap to spend more than $960-million.

This has been a challenging year for London's largest school board. The province has cut funding, increased class sizes and made e-learning mandatory.

The chair of the TVDSB, Arlene Morrell, spoke with CBC London Morning guest host Kerry McKee about some big decisions that factored into the financial picture for the board. 

You said a few weeks ago the board would have to make challenging decisions. Was that indeed the case?

Absolutely. We have a significant deficit, much of it relating to ensuring we're meeting the needs of our students with the secondary staffing, offering the courses students need to be successful in life.

When you say you have a significant deficit, what are we talking about?

A $4.6 million deficit directly related to additional staff at our secondary schools and then also meeting the needs of our special education students.

Can you give me an example, as you face these challenges, where parents and students might feel the pinch of those challenging decisions you've had to make?

I'm certain that students, each and every day over the past few weeks, are facing course selections that they would have made in January and/or February and those courses are no longer available to them.  As well, challenges around timetables in terms of those courses no longer being available to them and how it is that they fit their course load into a semester system.

We're likely to hear some complaints as people hear about these changes.

We certainly heard from our student trustees last night. We are so fortunate to have that student voice at the board table and our student trustees spoke very clearly relative to the challenges that students are facing related to course selections. We were very fortunate to put additional staffing lines with our surplus dollars into our secondary schools but over this next year we'll have much more difficult decisions to make relative to this.

So you've got this $4.6 million dollar deficit that the province is telling you to bring to zero, how difficult is that going to be and what are you going to have to cut?

Certainly senior administration will be working very diligently over this next year to look for where we can find efficiencies. We also had trustee Hunt, who put a motion forward last night, suggesting that there are ways in which we can look at closing classrooms, mothballing classrooms as opposed to school closures to also find efficiencies. So there's tremendous work ahead of us looking for where it is that we can find those efficiencies, ensuring that we are continuing to make the investments into our students first decision making is at hand.

The province has increased class sizes in high school to 28, up from 22. That means you've lost funding for some 50 teachers. What's happening to those positions?

There is attrition funding that we can access. However, we were still significantly over-complimented in terms of what we are funded for and hence how that has impacted the deficit within the budget. We also, as you alluded to, have the direction from the Ministry of Education that we are to move away from using our surplus dollars relative to the deficit in our budget. We are fortunate this year that we've had those surplus dollars and we've had those provisions, but we need to be working toward a balanced budget without that one-percent flexibility.

What happens to those positions as you move forward? Will you have money to pay for those teachers?

Through efficiencies we will have surplus dollars but the direction from the government is very clear in terms of a balanced budget. When we're using our surplus dollars to further make investments where we are underfunded, specifically in special education we have made significant investments over the years relative to meeting the needs of our special education students. I think about it in terms of our own bank account. If we continue to dip into our own savings it makes it very difficult over the long runs in terms of where we can find those efficiencies and savings and where we can further make investments.

And, the ripple effect in the classroom, I would imagine, is your most important concern.

Absolutely. When we think about student achievement and well-being, which is our primary mandate, and we think about the teachers and the staff that we have in our schools relative to student achievement, but also student well-being, there will be that ripple effect over time.

Enrollment at elementary schools in London is on the rise.  Masonville Public School is approved for expansion renovations. How are you budgeting for the growth at other schools -- like Tweedsmuir or the new school in Summerside?

Our school additions and new school builds are funded through a capital priorities grant. It's a different funding source relative to grants for student needs, which ultimately ensure that we're meeting the needs of students in the classroom each and every day versus our facilities, our new builds and our additions. But, there are challenges relative to that. We've had a moratorium on school closures for two years, there also has been a hold relative to opening the grant to capital priorities and we see areas, such as Eagle Heights, where there's significant growth, a significant number of students who are in portables and so that also presents a challenge relative to education funding.

Do you think the government is listening to concerns about the direction of education?

Absolutely. In many ways, as trustees, our message is that we would alongside the decision makers at Queen's Park and that we know the education portfolio best and that by working alongside we can where it is those investments need to continue to be made but also where it is we can find efficiencies to ensure that students are successful in life.

This interview has been edited for length.