‘Every single district ... is going to be better off’

Classroom enhancement fund injects $150 million into education as work begins to recruit 2,600 teachers

British Columbia’s education system will receive a $150-million funding boost after the province reached a deal with teachers to restore contract language that called for smaller class sizes.

Education Minister Mike Bernier said the new classroom enhancement fund is in addition to the $180 million announced in this year’s budget, bringing the total to $330 million.

The $180 million includes $80 million from the Education Fund and $100 million that was previously announced in the interim deal with the teachers.

The new funding will mean the hiring of about 1,500 new teachers, adding to the approximately 1,000 already announced in the budget, for a total of 2,600 new positions.

“Every single district in the province, every single one, is going to be better off,” Bernier said in a conference call with reporters on Friday.

Bernier would not say how much each district would get under the deal, but did say the Vancouver school board could get as much as $50 to $60 million of the total $330 million. Given that Vancouver has about nine per cent of the province’s students, that is a significant chunk of the total money, but Vancouver has strong class size, class composition and specialist teacher language.

Whether the money will eliminate Vancouver’s projected $12-million structural deficit is difficult to say because the money must be used to hire teachers and not to cover other expenses.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation announced earlier this month that a majority of its members voted to ratify a deal with the province that would restore contract language from a 2002 agreement.

The deal came after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last year that a law imposed by the province that blocked teachers’ ability to bargain class size was unconstitutional.

The decision ended a 14-year legal battle over bargaining rights that started when the province imposed legislation that stopped negotiations on issues like class size in 2002.

The BCTF said in a series of tweets that one problem with Bernier’s numbers is that they include the existing Education Fund portion allocated for teachers, an amount that has only been holding things steady. As Postmedia reported Friday, class composition numbers have grown worse even with this fund.

Bernier said the amounts are not hard or fast and that the actual final totals will not be known until staffing is in place in September. However, he said the province will cover the full cost of the new hires.

Bernier said the government recently announced $2 million for a recruitment and retention strategy, adding there will be a lot of work to do to fill teaching positions, particularly in rural B.C.

“We have already started reaching out to other parts of Canada ... to look at opportunities to bring people into British Columbia as we’re growing,” he said.

Bernier said the new funding includes $30 million for “soft costs,” such as supplies and janitorial expenses.

He also said the government has money put aside to cover capital costs, such as building additions required by the new teachers, once those costs from school districts become clear.

The minister said some districts would receive less funding than others, depending on size.

The government will have the actual amounts in September, when enrolment numbers and class composition become clear, he said.

Bernier said the funding represents a total investment of $1.7 billion over the next three years, but the province is set to return to the bargaining table with teachers in 2019.