Local Teachers and Education Minister meet for a Bonding session

One member of the battalion of cabinet Ministers that descended upon Prince Rupert over the weekend was Education Minister and Deputy Premier Shirley Bond, who met with local teachers at the Prince Rupert Library last week.

Bond and local educators exchanged views on the government’s plans for Bill 33 and how it may impact education in Prince Rupert, and area that has been identified as one of the most vulnerable districts in the province.

From declining enrollment and budgetary concerns, to classroom sizes the Minister was given a front line report from those teachers who have to implement the government’s education plans on a day to day basis.

The Daily News covered the meeting in a front page story in Wednesday’s edition.


TEACHERS SAY NOT ENOUGH HELP FOR KIDS
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Page One

Local teachers greeted Education Minister Shirley Bond at the Prince Rupert Library last week with some tough questions about Bill 33, the legislation passed May that caps the total number of regular and special needs students in classrooms.

“Is there any possibility that you can look at the demographics of the individual school districts?” said teacher Jeanne Thom.

“We’re so much more needy per capita ... we’re not very big so relative to your billions of dollars in budget we don’t really need a lot of money to make a huge difference for these children.”

Like many teachers in the district, Thom, who said she had eight individual education plan students in her class last year, are hoping for some assistance to better help local students.

The group of teachers stressed that Rupert students are very different from the rest of the province due to the sheer amount of need.

“It’s just the guilt and knowing that it used to be different and seeing it change (that’s) so painful for me. I have, in the last three years of my 24 year career, had the hardest time of my career,” said Thom to murmurs of agreement from other teachers.

“It doesn’t have to be this way; I know it’s not this way at other schools. I just wish we could look at the specifics of this area because if we don’t get it now we can’t say in three years ‘okay we’ll give you Grade 6 again this year because we’ve got more money.

“We can do the Olympics and we can build these major mega-highways, we should be doing something for the children now.”

Teachers explained that the issue locally has less to do with the number of students in classes than it does with make-up of their classes.

If the three special needs student cap in Bill 33 was kept locally, Roosevelt school, for example, would require an additional 17 divisions, something teachers acknowledge is not realistic.

“There is not as you know a hard number at all … in fact we believe that principals and superintendents in consultation with teachers will decide what the best learning conditions will be,” Bond told the teachers.

“If you look at declining enrollments around the province, in fact this year there will be 7,000 less students and those dollars have not been taken out of the system.”

With funding at the highest level in the province’s history, less kids – including 30 per cent less locally due to declines over the last decade – and a new contract for teacher’s fully funded by the province that will see the education budget increase around a half billion dollars over the next five years, Bond said that districts are expected to operate within their funding envelopes.

“There are certainly no easy answers but my job is to make sure that as many dollars as we can (are) put into the system, and we’re going to do that, (and) that Bill 33 is going to be managed within the context that we have now,” said Bond, acknowledging that the district is needy.

“The other thing about Bill 33 is that we’re going to review it in a year, we’re going to have a look at it.

”I put that in the legislation for a reason, because it’s important that we look at the legislation to see if it works. The roundtable will continue to discuss where it goes.”

While the demographics in Prince Rupert and area very complex, the concerns expressed by local teachers are not unique to the area, she said.

To that end, a conference of rural and remote communities is planned for the fall to discuss changes to the school system and how to deal with issues like classroom organization.

The province is also aware of the vulnerability index data compiled by Dr. Clyde Hertzman, which listed the district as among the province’s most needy, and is looking at some developments in early learning and family resources in Rupert, said Bond.