Annie's News

The budget and the grants for school boards

So we got more tax cuts – a funny thing to do when the government is desperate for money – but we got them nonetheless. And things could have been much worse for education.

It is hard when enrolment is declining and revenue is tight to keep arguing for more funding for education. But we know it’s the greatest investment we can make, and we know that by spending money now on education, we save lots of money later. So there will funding to cover inflation in operating costs for schools, there’ll be more money for staff, more money to reduce class sizes in grades 4 to 8, and, because of increases in preparation time, there will be slight increases in funding for specialist teachers in elementary schools. BUT…

Funding for textbooks and computers will be reduced by $50 million, and grants for professional development are cut by $44.5 million (Some of that came out of the Learning Opportunities Grant). Some boards will also receive cuts to their transportation funding depending on how well they’re doing in their partnerships with coterminous boards. And the temporary funding that helps school boards adjust to declining enrolment has been cut by $5.8 million.

Important to watch the funding for school councils and Parent Involvement Committees

The province has decided to continue providing funding for school councils ($500 each) and Parent Involvement Committees ($5,000 each, plus 17¢ per student) but boards will receive it as part of their School Board Administration and Governance Grant. This may make the funding a little harder to keep track of.

Changes in funding for community use and special education, but no change for the Learning Opportunities Grant

The Ministry of Education has also made changes to the way it supports community use of schools. Boards will still get community use funding included in their grants, but the funding for Outreach Coordinators will now be allocated to boards separately, so that it may only be used for hiring those staff. And the job of Outreach Coordinator will be expanded to include helping to coordinate partnerships with community organizations, other school boards, municipalities, social service agencies, and others. We’ll see if this makes it easier for schools to start to become community hubs.

There have also been changes to the way Special Education is funded, as the Ministry tries to move to a model that funds the actual number of students with significant special needs – as opposed to just funding special education based on the overall number of students and a very approximate percentage. On the other hand there are no changes yet to the Learning Opportunities Grant which is supposed to provide funding for students whose socio-economic status puts them at risk of struggling in school. It’s now based on census data that’s well over ten years old, and there is still no way of keeping track of how it’s actually used.

Declining enrolment report released – with lots of recommendations

The report from the province’s Working Group on Declining Enrolment released on March 20th, says that Ontario will have 140,000 fewer students in 2012 than it had in 2002. p>

They say that enrolment decline is simply a result of a lower birth rate and that the proportion of students in private school (5.7%) has not increased in the last few years. So, despite what some say, the enrolment decline is not due to a flight to private schools. The working group also found that 34 school boards now have fewer than 12,000 students.

The report talks about the impact of declining enrolment, including reductions in the number and variety of programs schools can offer; an increase in the number of multi-grade classes; and a reduction in teaching staff in areas like literacy and numeracy. Declining enrolment has also meant losses in library and guidance staff, supervisory staff, vice–principals, and secretarial staff. Services such as social workers and speech-language pathologists become harder to provide when enrolment declines.

The Working Group made a number of recommendations, mainly focused on the need for long-term, coordinated planning and support for partnerships. Among the recommendations:

• Boards should be required to create multi-year, enrolment-based plans using a common template, and in those plans they should be required to consider sharing school facilities with coterminous boards.

• The Accommodation Review Committee (ARC) process should be modified – reviewing the school valuation framework, the nature of the advice ARCs should offer, the consultation process, the role of school board personnel on ARCs and the possibility that some processes could be streamlined.

• Boards with excess space should be required to actively pursue partnerships to share facilities with community partners.

• Boards building new schools should be required to look for community partners to engage in co-planning, co-financing and co-construction.

• All services and agencies funded by the province should be required to consider using available school space before they build, purchase or lease any other space. E.g. coterminous school boards, social service agencies, children’s and seniors’ services, health, recreation, housing and municipalities.

• The province should provide templates and funding to support partnerships, including capital funding to support modifications to school buildings.

• Funding for information technology should be consolidated into a special purpose grant and should be based on the real costs school boards face; E-learning and other technology-based program delivery should be expanded; and the province should ensure that all students have equitable access to broadband connectivity.

• The Declining Enrolment Grant should be adjusted and simplified so that more of the funding comes in the first two years. But it should not be reduced.

• Money boards save from closing/consolidating schools should be put into a transition fund to cover the costs of renovating or upgrading other schools.

• Special education funding should be based on the needs of students rather than on enrolment.

You can read the whole report on the province's website, just click here: Declining Enrolment, and I'll have a synopsis posted tomorrow. (when I figure out how you add an attachment to a web page)