Negative numbers are driving the school district's agenda to consider closing 14 schools.
The two most prominent line items written in red are the number of students in the district (dropping fast) and the amount of money coming from the provincial government (big cuts this year).
There are other numbers factored into the math: the carbon tax ($200,000 for 2010), Medical Services Plan premiums ($128,000 this year and $168,000 in future), negotiated staff wage increases ($1.5 million per year starting 2010), etc.
When the provincial government decided in September to axe the Annual Facilities Grant to school districts this year - a hit of more than $3 million to this district - it was already a foregone conclusion that schools in this area needed to be closed to save money. The student numbers just didn't support having all the current schools open, said School District 57 superintendent of schools Brian Pepper.
"We have lost more than 1,900 students in the last five years," he said. "We have a tremendous amount of underutilized space: about 4,000 seats, and we will have about 6,000 empty seats in four or five years."
Each student in B.C. represents about $5,851 per student from the provincial government.
All told, SD57 faced a $4 million shortfall before the B.C. government's budget cut in September. It was a $7 million shortfall following that. According to Pepper, if left unchecked, the shortfall would grow to more than $11 million by the 2014-15 school year.
"It is brutal in many ways, but the alternative is even more brutal," Pepper said. "It (drastic immediate cost reductions) allows for sustainability and improved levels of educational services to enrich the lives of each student."
Three months were spent by a team of SD57's most senior administrators to examine every facet of district spending and services. They authored a report showing complex figures for fitting the district's remaining students into the best slate of buildings they could calculate.
"Part of me is delighted to come forward with this," said Pepper, meaning he valued the opportunity, albeit under duress, to delve so deeply into the way the district is set up to run.
One of the things that jumped out of the administrative committee's research was the residential scenario north of the Nechako River. The greater Hart area was experiencing the largest declines in student populations to the point that the newest facility in the district, Heather Park Middle School, was no longer believed to be viable as such. The Grade 8 component could easily be hived off to Kelly Road Secondary School to boost its flagging numbers, and many of the elementary schools could be telescoped down to fit into the HPMS building in a Kindergarten-to-Grade 7 format.
The proposed closure of Ecole Austin Road, Nukko Lake, Springwood, Salmon Valley and Shady Valley elementary schools and the conversion of HPMS into an elementary school amounted to a cost reduction of more than $1.2 million.
Further north, Mackenzie had its two elementary schools reduced to one, by recommendation of the committee, for a further savings of $220,000.
Going east, the math was easy if not historically painful. Shutting down one of the oldest schools in SD57, Dunster Fine Arts Elementary School, amounted to a savings of $172,000 but with only 11 students projected to attend the school by 2014 it was one of the committee's recommendations. The students would instead be dealt to McBride Elementary School.
South of the city, Hixon Elementary is recommended for closure and even factoring in the busing of kids to Buckhorn Elementary, the cost savings amount to $190,000.
Of those schools not already mentioned, the biggest potential savings comes from the closure of Lakewood Junior Secondary and John McInnis Junior Secondary but both are suggested for other educational purposes. The remaining top elementary school savings possibilities are Peden Hill ($208,000) and Central Fort George ($201).
Staffing is the single largest cost to any B.C. school district. SD57 had made a point of having extra staff, over the past few years, but always as a benefit to the classroom. The committee report recommends ending those benefits. Provincial guidelines for class size should be the order of the day, not the slightly smaller classes this district had been mandating.
Secretary-Treasurer Bryan Mix explained that 32 extra teacher positions were spared from cuts to ensure the ratio of students to teachers in this district was actually better now than it was four years ago, Mix explained. In 2005-06 there were 18.63 students per teacher all told across SD57, but today it is 17.85 students per teacher. There would be 723 teachers if the the provincial guidelines were adhered to, instead of 755.
Mix said teaching is not the only area the district has protected to some extent from baseline job losses. If the only factors considered were straight year-by-year equations tied to per-student income from the province, professional staff should number 17, not 22; CUPE employees should number 349 not 401; custodians should number 87 not 100; principals and vice-principals should number 87 not 100; trades staff should number 51 not 57 and exempt personnel should number 36 not 41. (All numbers represent full-time equivalent positions.)
Pepper added that in only a few years "I am sad to say, we will be doing this again" if some other way of raising $4 million doesn't happen. That is the looming shortfall still to be wrestled with based on the continuing drop in student numbers they are expecting in SD57 in the four years ahead.
All of the proposals are open for debate. Tuesday night at 6 p.m. at Vanier Hall (some other sd57 board business will also be discussed, it is a regularly scheduled meeting of trustees) is the first chance the public has to engage the district on the issue of the suggested cuts.
If the board votes to accept the recommendations, it is still not a done deal; it will trigger a provincially mandated 60-day public consultation period where feedback can be provided to the district in a number of formats.
fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
