Excerpts
A Kootenay school district is calling on the B.C. government to review its funding for inclusive education supports and child-care spaces, which the district says are inadequate and don’t meet the needs of rural communities.
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SD8 board chair Susan Chew says the enrolment-based model doesn’t cover the actual costs required by districts, nor does it distinguish between urban and rural districts.
“As we know with many things in our communities, we are challenged with economies of scale, being in dispersed and remote areas,” Chew told the Nelson Star. “And it’s the same in providing the best educational support we can.”
The education ministry allocates funding to districts based on enrolment, the uniqueness of the enrolment (a student with a special need, for example, requires a different allotment), and factors that are specific to the district such as geography.
SD8 was provided $5.7 million for inclusive education salaries, supplies and services for the current school year. But that is $1.9 million short of what the district needed, and has required SD8 to make up the difference using money from its general operating grant.
(B.C. also assists districts with its Provincial School Outreach teams and programs that prioritize students in rural communities with direct access to specialists, which SD8 takes advantage of without it impacting the district budget.)
Chew believes the delivery of inclusive education is due for a reassessment. The education ministry previously reviewed inclusive education in 2018, but that process only sought to improve the allocation of resources and did not increase funding except to Indigenous student programs.
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Child-care spaces
School District 8 is also advocating for a review of provincial funding for child-care centres located in schools or on district-owned land.
SD8 currently hosts nine such centres, each of which is managed by a third party, and provides a total of 400 spaces.
(The district also directly manages 12 spaces at a seamless day after-school program at Winlaw Elementary, but the province has ended funding for the Winlaw program following this school year. SD8 says it has asked for expressions of interest from third parties to take it over in September.)
Chew wrote a Jan. 19 letter on behalf of the district to Beare and Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma, in which she asked for guaranteed funding for spaces and an expansion of the $10-a-Day program that has since been paused by the government.
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Just four of SD8’s nine child-care centres are included in the $10-a-Day program. Chew’s letter, which was sent prior to the government announcement, included a request for “a transparent, staged pathway for eligible school-based centres to transition to $10-a-Day.”
The education and infrastructure ministries said the decision to pause new funding followed consultation with parents and providers who were critical of the current program.
”The ministry is committed to working closely with our child-care partners, including school districts, to chart a more sustainable and fair path forward.”