School boards bracing for more budget cuts
CBC News | Posted: December 14, 2011 1:17 AM | Last Updated: December 14, 2011
School boards in Nova Scotia are being told to expect another budget cut and educators say classrooms won't be shielded from the negative effects.
The provincial NDP government has already cut its overall budget for schools by two per cent for the coming year, in addition to asking boards to cut administration costs by 15 per cent and consultant fees by 50 per cent over three years.
"This year they did everything they could to ensure that the classroom, as much as possible, would be protected from the impact of those cuts," said Vic Fleury, president of the Nova Scotia School Boards Association.
"Next year, if there's a similar level of cuts, that can't possibly be avoided."
He said the cuts amounted to about $36 million for the entire province.
Ramona Jennex, the Minister of Education, confirmed there will be cuts to the boards but she declined to say how much.
"We're looking at an attrition budget but we are making sure that our budget matches the needs of our students in our schools," she told CBC News on Tuesday.
Jennex said the government will not allow the quality of education to be compromised.
But at a news conference on Tuesday, the school boards and the teachers union said it won't be possible to avoid impacting the quality of education. They warned students with special needs will be hit the hardest.
"When programs like that, or O2 (Options and Opportunities) or co-op or any of these programs are affected, sometimes they're the kids who are kind of marginalized," said Alexis Allen, the president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.
"The school doesn't fit every child and so they do lose out."
553 positions eliminated
According to numbers released by the Nova Scotia School Boards Association, school boards eliminated 553 positions this year: 128 were cut based on declining enrolment and the other 425 positions were cut due to lack of funds.
Those 425 positions included:
- 82 teaching positions.
- 136 program specialists and consultants.
- 75 teaching assistants.
- 132 non-teaching staff in operations, maintenance, busing.
To avoid classroom cuts, the Nova Scotia School Boards Association said the boards made cuts in areas such as summer school, extracurricular travel and maintenance of schools.
Boards also deferred upgrades to technology and cut back on operational costs including heat, buses and library spending.
Despite declining enrolment, some teachers said they're seeing large class sizes of 30 students or more, leading to teacher burnout.
"I'm referring more teachers to our EIP programs — that's early intervention programs at the union — and also to counselling because of the frustration," said Tim MacLeod, a middle school teacher.
"There's a lot of guilt when you feel like you're not doing your job."
Jennex said she wants to get the budget numbers to the boards in January.