A Look Ahead…

President's Message

On Tuesday, February 17, Wendy and I had the privilege of attending the provincial budget lockup on your behalf. Five hours with representatives from every imaginable stakeholder group in the province, along with staff from all Ministries and reporters galore, provided us with everything we wanted to know about the provincial budget and more. Our interest, of course, was in any news related to education funding. The news appeared to be positive, but we were left with questions in relation to the overlay of our July to June budget on the province’s April to March fiscal year.

Further clarification came from Keith Miller and James Gorman on Wednesday, February 18 at the Education Advisory Council. It appears as if overall funding will remain at 2008/09 levels with additional funds to cover the costs of provincially negotiated labour settlements, specifically the total operating grant was raised by $76 million (as anticipated) from $4.467 billion to $4.543 billion for the school year 2009/10. That said, we will wait until March 15 to see how things play out at the district level. One thing that is yet unclear is the extent to which funding will be allocated within the block to areas such as distributed learning, new mandate requirements, summer school, and greening initiatives. More in those areas means, clearly, less in the per pupil amount. One interesting new requirement is that $12 million across the province will need to be demonstrably moved from administrative expenditures to classrooms.

All in all, the budget news for K-12 was relatively positive, given the current economic malaise. Thus, my three key messages for the media have been: 1) we are pleased to see that K-12 funding has been maintained at levels that were anticipated even prior to the economic downturn; 2) while constant funding and declining enrolment result in increased per pupil funding, we remain concerned that increased per pupil costs exceed the relative increase in funding; and, 3) we look forward to continued dialogue at the provincial level about funding levels and ways in which funds are allocated.

I want to also take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been involved in the structured discussions within regions about our BCSSA influence and profile. Thanks go to chapter directors for leading those conversations and to Wendy and our BCSSA staff for providing support materials. We had the pleasure of attending the Okanagan-Mainline meeting in Revelstoke last week, where the quality of the conversations, including in regard to influence, was only exceeded by the beauty of our surroundings and the quality of hosting by Anne Cooper and Jane Morris.

Finally, on behalf of the executive I want to express my appreciation to all of you for the great leadership that you demonstrate across our province, every day in every way. In particular, thank you for your leadership and communication in seeing us through the ins and outs of FSA over the past month. We are all looking forward to the provincial discussions that will ensue in regard to assessment and learning. In fact, we intend to take a lead. We will discuss in executive next week the preparation of a BCSSA division paper on assessment, and the leadership that we can bring to the provincial dialogue.

Best regards,

– Keven Elder, BCSSA President

For further information on the 2009 BC Budget Report please visit: http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca

Minister of Finance Colin Hansen's slide presentation:
http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2009/slides/default.htm

Retirement and Awards Dinner 2009 – April 16

Just a reminder that the BCSSA Vancouver Sun Run Team has been registered and all BCSSA members, their families, colleagues, friends and hangers-on are all invited to join. The Sun Run will be held on Sunday, April 19 in Vancouver.

Due to our Spring Forum taking place from April 17-18, it’s a good chance for you to take part in this 25th anniversary Sun Run on the following day. You can walk, walk/run, run or race the 10K route - the goal is to have everyone fit and participating. Go to Vancouver Sun Run for all information on route, training schedule, race times, etc.

To register as a corporate team member, go to the Sun Run website and click on Registration. You will have to create an account to add your name to the BC School Superintendents Association team.

PRICE: $40
DEADLINE: March 6/08:
We will have your shirts and race packages ready for pick-up at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver during the 2009 Spring Forum.

Join the BCSSA and 50,000 of our closest friends on April 19th!

BCSSA 2009 Grade 12 Essay Scholarship