Surrey Schools cuts services to produce balanced budget

Montessori, intensive literacy programs among student supports to be affected

The board of the Surrey school district has approved a budget for 2024-25 of over $1.1 billion, but will still need to make some cuts to services.

Budget chair Terry Allen said the cuts will be in areas that are not central to the Ministry of Education's annual operating grants, which are based on the number of students.

For example, the board will reduce the number of schools offering the StrongStart program from 25 to 23 and will no longer provide bus services for students in the intensive literacy program.

StrongStart is a free drop-in program for parents and guardians to bring their children aged from newborn to five to school to take part in early learning experiences and prepare for kindergarten. The intensive literacy program is a program for students, Grades 4-6, with problems reading.

As part of the cuts, Allen said that the Montessori program at Latimer Road Elementary will be relocated and French immersion at one elementary school will be reduced.

A hiring freeze will take effect for district office positions that do not support core educational objectives, while teaching staff in positions like career facilitators, transitions teachers and technology support teachers will move to classroom positions.

The district will get more money from the Ministry of Education as enrolment continues to soar — $1.05 billion, up from $944 million this school year. The total budget amount including all sources of revenue will be $1.128 billion for the 2024-25 school year.

The budget shows a drop of almost $3.4 million in transportation and housing spending.

The Ministry of Education pays the school district a certain amount based on the number of students.

In the 2019-20 school year there were 72,161 students enrolled. This year there are 75,067. Surrey Schools has 103 elementary schools, 21 secondary schools and five student-learning centres.

The district anticipates that somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 new students will arrive in the fall for the 2024-25 school year, driven in part by immigration.

Surrey's student population is projected to be 91,000 by 2030.

Allen said the school district is facing a series of problems including an exponential growth in student numbers, a provincewide teacher shortage and rising costs due to inflation.