Parents decry Vancouver school cuts
Plan calls for cutting more than 200 jobs to trim $27 million from budget
Parents are concerned about the Vancouver school board’s budget proposal, saying they’re worried about larger class sizes and cuts to supports for special needs students.
A VSB staff proposal calls for cutting more than 200 jobs to trim $27 million from the district’s $477-million operating budget.
Amanda Hillis, a parent of two boys, Grades 5 and 7 at Queen Alexandra elementary school, called the budget “devastating.”
“I’m heartbroken and the government blames it all on VSB priorities and mismanagement,” Hillis said in an email. “I don’t blame VSB but provincial underfunding.”
VSB chairman Mike Lombardi placed the blame for the shortfall on inadequate government funding, while Minister of Education Mike Bernier said excess capacity was to blame.
The VSB has approved a draft plan calling for the closure of as many as 21 schools over the next decade, but processes for school closure take a long time and no schools could be closed in time to balance this budget.
Secondary school classes will be allowed to go larger than 30 students, which will mean about 33 secondary school teaching jobs cut.
About 80 of the lost jobs are people who work directly with children in roles considered to have either “severe impacts on teaching and learning” or “impact large numbers of students.”
The cuts include school support workers for special needs students, teachers, vice-principals, and many specialists such as anti-racism and anti-homophobia teacher mentors.
Andrea Coutu, the parent of two sons with special needs who are 8 and 11, said the cuts are disproportionately affecting special needs students. She is happy with the supports her sons are getting now, but she had to advocate hard to get that support and knows many families do not get the supports they need.
The cuts include the elimination of two district programs for gifted students. Coutu said both of her sons are identified as gifted as well as having special needs and one of them is slated to attend one of these gifted programs later this year.
“This is such a wonderful way to engage kids and to involve kids who are among the most vulnerable for being dropouts,” Coutu said.
“I think we’re being made to think, as citizens, that the choice is close schools or cut programs, but the other option is that the provincial government could increase funding.”
Both Coutu and Willis spoke out against school closures.
Vancouver schools are now at 84.6-per-cent capacity. Two small annexes, Maquinna and Laurier, have already effectively closed after no students registered.
Coutu said one of her sons goes to Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano, which was slated for possible closure in 2010 due to low enrolment, but which is now full and has to turn away students. Closing schools or demanding 95-per-cent capacity eliminates spaces for daycares and before- and after-school care centres needed by working parents, Coutu said.
CUPE 15 president Warren Williams, whose local could lose about 50 education assistants who work with special needs students and office workers, said he is concerned about who will support the students if so many jobs are eliminated.
The public will have the opportunity to comment on the budget proposal at a series of upcoming meetings and the board will vote on its budget April 28.
By law, school boards must have a balanced budget.