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BC's Biggest School District Faces Cuts as Enrolment Grows

Surrey's dilemma: buy a portable classroom or hire 1.5 teachers?

By Crawford Kilian, 12 May 2010, TheTyee.ca

Kindergarten student

Adams Road Elementary School in Surrey.

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The irony is hard to miss: While most B.C. school districts have lost funding because of declining enrolments, a few are growing -- none more than Surrey. Yet Surrey's growing student numbers are only compounding its funding problems.

After decades as a semi-rural suburb, Surrey has become the biggest school district in the province, with 67,293 students this year. (Vancouver has about 56,000.)

Surrey has 99 elementary schools, 19 secondaries, five student learning centres and four adult education centres. The district is Surrey's biggest single employer, with about 5,000 teachers and 3,700 other employees. Its estimated operating budget this year is about $545 million dollars. But that's not quite enough.

1,300 more students coming

Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, visiting Surrey on May 10, spared 45 minutes to listen to parents, teachers, and staff, but she didn't offer much. Her ministry issued a news release about the visit, but it dealt entirely with money for seismic upgrading of Hall's Prairie Elementary School. Two of those who spoke with her also spoke with The Tyee.

Denise Moffatt, president of the Surrey Teachers' Association, told The Tyee that the district endured a $9 million cut this year and faces cuts to cover a $12 million deficit in 2010-11.

Yet K-12 enrolment is 1,101 over September 2008, making a total of 67,293.

Moffat expects almost 1,300 new students next year.

Given such an increase, Moffatt said, Surrey should hire 30 to 40 new teachers; instead it will hire three. "Non-enrolling" teachers, including 10 elementary counselors and eight teacher-librarians, will be reassigned to classroom duties. With all-day kindergarten coming in, more teachers will work at that level. Secondary schools will also need more teachers. But some middle-school teachers may be reassigned. "We are also losing approximately 13 learner support teachers."

'Container housing' for kids

Indirectly, Surrey's growth is actually removing teachers from the budget. Moffatt says that when portable classrooms must be purchased to keep up with enrolments, the cost comes out of the district's operating budget. "One portable is roughly equal to one and a half teachers," she said.

School board chair Laurae McNally says the portable problem is even worse: "In 2007 we had to buy 20 portables at $100,000 apiece," she told The Tyee. "That was $2 million out of our operating budget." She said Surrey will have to buy another 20 portables for next year.

McNally said portables have another drawback: They're inefficient to heat and light, and costly to maintain. So Surrey will have to pay Victoria a projected $550,000 next year for failing to meet the district's carbon-offsets goal -- as well as spending $2 million on inefficient portables.

"Except for seismic upgrades, we haven't had any capital approvals since 2005-06," McNally said. "We opened a new school this year, but it was part of that approval."

What do parents think about this? "Parents are really miffed that our board is being singled out," McNally said. "Two and a half million dollars would go a long way toward providing support and services."

Denise Moffatt said the minister hinted at some capital support. "We don't have enough kindergarten classrooms, but reading between the lines it appears that some capital funding is on the way." More money may also come for special community needs, but Moffatt doesn't expect such "community links" funding in time for next year.

"Our deficit is more than Vancouver's, given our growth," Moffatt said. "We need $12 million more just to replicate this year's services."

No quick solutions

In an operational budget of $545 million, a $12 million shortfall is only 2.2 per cent. That reflects how tightly the budget is stretched. And the consequences also reflect the catch-22 faced by the Surrey schools: The more students they get, the more portables they have to buy, and the fewer teachers they can afford to put in them.

McNally argues that the problem stems from long-term neglect of the needs of growing districts. She said that even if Dr. McDiarmid returned to Surrey today with plenty of capital funding, it would be two and a half to three years before new facilities would be available. In the meantime, Surrey would have to buy still more portables out of its operating budget.

Will enrolments eventually fall even in Surrey? McNally doubts it: "Twenty per cent of all the babies born in B.C. are born in Surrey Memorial Hospital." [Tyee]

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

12 Comments:

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  • crh

    2 years ago

    Maybe the PAC's can organize

    Maybe the PAC's can organize a fundraiser, to give to the Liberal party.

    Looks like Surrey got what it voted for.

  • Tangler

    2 years ago

    Try Paying Attention

    crh: There are 8 MLAs in Surrey. Four are Liberal, four are NDP.

  • mwatkins

    2 years ago

    Surrey Example Proves Campbell Waging War on Education

    Premier Gordon Campbell in his 2005 swearing-in ceremony talked about a "golden decade" and made this specific promise:

    "We aim to make B.C. the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent. Our education investments will continue to grow as we work with parents, teachers, and educational leaders across British Columbia to put our
    children's education in the forefront and to give them the future they deserve."

    Instead of a brighter future, Campbell's government has given students the shaft.

    Instead we've had ministers like Christy Clark, Shirley Bond, and Margaret MacDiarmid, all of which have continued to assault public education on their watches, on the marching orders of Gordon Campbell.

    Instead we've seen costs downloaded to boards where boards have no funding or even decision making power to alter the outcome (think portables, heating, carbon offsets instead of new green building). Instead of supporting literacy, which this government has said they will do, teacher librarians are being cut across the province. I've seen first hand the difference a teacher librarian makes in a school, and to my own kids.

    Minister MacDiarmid continues to lie about the situation - they call it spin, but even a 5 year old can recognize her and Campbell's words for what they really are.

    Perhaps we the electorate really do get the government we deserve, but I do believe that voters are going to pay much more attention at the polls next time.

  • edward01ca

    2 years ago

    Seismic Upgrading of Hall's Prairie

    I just did a little searching and found out that Hall's Prairie Elementary School is in Kevin Falcon's riding. I gues McDiarmid is just taking care "business" for the Liberals and making sure more people don't sign the anti-HST petition in this riding.

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Surrey's first move

    Should be to petition Minister of Children and Family Development and Minister Responsible for Child Care Mary Polak (to give her full label) for the million dollars she wasted on a prejudice-driven campaign against gay people...

    That would be a good start.

    I'm sure, with her connections, she could get a low-interest loan and pay it back with her minister's stipend as long as she's receiving a salary from the public purse.

    Fair's fair after all.

    I suggest Minister MacDiarmid initiate discussions right away.

  • Amelia Bellamy-Royds

    2 years ago

    Basic budget definitions

    It is absolutely illogical that portable classrooms are sourced from the annual operating budget. These are major structures, which last many years, and they are a substitute for permanent buildings. As far as I know, they still have value second-hand if they are eventually replaced. That should all add up to a definition of a capital acquisition, and portables should be coming out of a capital budget.

    Furthermore, if the portables did come out of the capital budget, then the provincial bean counters would have to properly assess the relative costs (including future operating costs) of portables versus new builds. I suspect that would help with the approvals for capital expansions in a district like Surrey with steadily growing population.

    On a side note, if some of the schools facing a space crunch are at the secondary level, one solution is that used by my old high school in Ottawa: have a longer school day. By scheduling five full-length classes per day instead of four, they effectively increased the number of classroom spaces by 25%. Students and teachers had one more free period each day; for teachers, this replaced prep time that would normally be scheduled into their work day before or after classes.

    To avoid an excessively long day, activities such as band practice that are normally extra-curricular were instead scheduled in to one of the early morning periods, but otherwise there weren't many complications. And the free period in the day was a good time to catch up on homework. Unless, that is, you were lucky enough to have first period free, in which case it was a good time to catch up on sleep!

  • morechatter

    2 years ago

    We are In the Money

    Or so British Columbians are told as things are booming for oil that is. Its what is keeping the Canadian dollar up as foreign investors find the investment opportunities investors were looking for all thanks to Canadian's Government. Where does that leave Canadians as governments focus is on bringing in an educated work force and selling homes and home renovations rather than focusing on educating Canadians leaving them available for minimum wage jobs. So BC is in the money but BC's Children sure are not as their futures are pretty bleek as the prospect of working a minimum wage job is more like a sentence.
    That's right government is now investing in Canada's resources and not Canadians as who can afford the loans as many find themselves a victim of Governemnt loans as former students payments for the year where $1200.00 while $1100 goes to interest and a $100 towards the principal. And the resources available to these young children is becming less and less as more and more is spent on attracting foreign investors as HST comes into play.

  • Loke

    2 years ago

    Barely touches on the subject....

    This barely touches on the subject for Surrey.
    - Minister says Surrey is getting 1 new school when told no new infrastructure. School was approved about 5 years ago. I know of at least 2 in that time that were closed due to being too expensive to maintain.
    - Almost all schools (all highschools) have multiple portables that children have to walk in the rain/snow to get to.
    - LTA's are already below required levels. 2 girls in my school have to share one when it is required they have 1 full and 1 part time.
    - Over 1 year to get through a wait list to see a school psychologist for issues like dyslexia.
    - Schools are having to do multiple major fund raising drives for materials or fild trips.
    - Schools are being slammed by fees for eco-initives, teacher raises and more.

    The Surrey elected officials (City Council and School board) are useless to do anything and the Province blames the city.

  • North of Hope

    2 years ago

    And then

    And then there is Pr. George that built a new secondary school it didn't need. A new Dutchess Park SS was built even though enrolment is declining. It cost of $30 million. Students who attend could have gone to 3 other secondary schools or other jr. secondary schools. However the powers that be together with the school board and then Minister S. Bond decided to build it. It is now in operation and several schools that could have housed students have closed. Another bit of poor planning by the BC Liberals.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    A "simple" solution at hand......

    Quote:
    School board chair Laurae McNally says the portable problem is even worse: "In 2007 we had to buy 20 portables at $100,000 apiece," she told The Tyee. "That was $2 million out of our operating budget." She said Surrey will have to buy another 20 portables for next year

    http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/04/13/MostAffordable/

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    Of course, as many BC'ers have opined....

    ....this being but one example:
    http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=fa3b42af-aa47-4e1e-b3fe-70c355255ba0
    Why should we subsidize people who choose to live on, for instance, Saltspring Island. They should pay the cost
    Likewise, why should we subsidize peiople who want to live in Surrey? They should pay the cost....yada, yada, yada.

  • NDN_Coach

    2 years ago

    Duchess Park was sorely in need of replacement

    I sure wouldn't send kids to a dilapidated building that had many health issues associated with it. It was a law suit waiting to happen and contractor's fees are a hell of a lot cheaper than lawyers fees.

    Yeah, close the school, then send the students to other school. Then I know people would be whining about making students *shudder* cross a busy street.

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