Principiis obsta…Finem respice
Resist the beginning… Consider the end
Our Trustee Eden
This report is about the wonderful world of math. The comforting structured certainty of numbers and the capriciousness with which they are confounded and overturned.
If I had been alert I would be better prepared for this period of my life – strewn as it is with examples of creative math usage.
The school district is after all a world of numbers. Our calculations around schools, student population, costs, community will, classroom conditions, salaries and wages, property values, test scores -it is all simple arithmetic yet it is all evidently a matter of opinion.
Clearly – the early figure of almost 800 signatures on an ongoing petition to support trustees in the submission of a budget that would actually provide student learning is a mere bagatelle or so the parents from the Lake were informed but 700 plus positive responses to the district email survey supporting a cut in the school year represents a landslide of public opinion. While the complete absence of any recommendations at all from the parent group was viewed as an endorsement of the budget – the detailed, unanimous call for restoring programs, services and facilities upkeep from all our other partner groups is a whisper that can be safely ignored.
While a handful of parents can determine the fate of an elementary school at the lake – the virtually unified outcry against the sale of JH Boyd from an entire community was little more than an example of restive indecision .When an architects firm delivers facts and figures to support restoring ABG they are ignored but when they return a year later with another set of stats that support canning the place and asking the ministry for a new school we listen with vital ferocity. Somehow the petition from Lake residents asking to have ABG fixed and put back in harness was not even worthy of comment but a couple of emails demanding the new school regardless of the likelihood represent a undeniable slice of community voice worthy of all our attention.
Interestingly according to the Student Success Budget ( attached)we are at least $15 million short this budget year if we are to actually meet the needs described by the Senior Management Team, the Cowichan Valley Teachers Federation, CUPE, Steelworkers, Hwulmuhw Mustimuhw Education Council and it should be noted that the $15 million figure has been developed for this year only and does not address the accumulated loss of funding that has accrued over the years and damaged our kids’ prospects.
In Victoria the Secretary Treasurer there went though the administrative cuts inflicted on that district’s system since 1991 and showed an unadjusted sum of over $ 28 million. Cost pressures provincially since 01/02 are calculated at $922,957,445 while the increase from the Treasury Board to the Ministry of Education for the education funding block was $673,000,000 in the same period endowing us all with a structural deficit in the provision of public education of $259,957,445.
Yet our government maintains that more and more money is being spent on our schools – if they used their considerable numbers genius for good instead of evil we might be able to honour our commitments to quality public services instead of quality bull shit.
Yes it is all numbers and yes it can mean anything you like. The consensus around the province supplying many voices to the discussion around whether we should be challenging the imposition of false austerity on our kids has snowballed – even conservative organisations generally grafted to the ministry agenda like the BCSTA, BCCPAC and some senior administration professional organisations have added their concerns .So together we have a compelling bulwark of community inquisition to bolster our nerve. Yet -with all those numbers on our side we still quail and refuse to take that crucial step towards adding our own efforts to this phenomenon.
Well here are some numbers – we have over 800 kids who will not be bussed to school anymore, we will lose 18 fulltime teaching positions, we will lose almost 5 full time education assistant positions, we will save $268,000 at the expense of our support staff and parents when we cut our school year, we will fail the kids in the 189 classes that have more than 3 students with recognised challenges not to mention all the ones who are not officially designated, we will neglect the 17% of our student population who are aboriginal and we will undo the efforts of 100% of our teachers ,our parents ,our support staff and our community members who try against all odds to raise our kids to be fully fledged, thoughtful, capable citizens .
Ironically – the province uses the relatively small decline in student numbers to justify providing less resources for the ones who are there(we do have 8,000 kids in this district so I think it might be wise to focus on the students that are in our classrooms rather than the far smaller number who have not materialised). Meanwhile – the pressures in our hospitals and elderly peoples’ facilities – rapidly increasing I am told- are an equally compelling excuse for not providing for those needs. I really wish they would get their story straight – do they want lots of us or fewer of us or as I suspect -none of us.
9 trustees will decide.
If just one of them changes their mind for the third reading and votes to send this powerful shot across the bow of the ministry and submit our 2009/2010 Student Success Budget (see attached) we can unfurl our hopes that this will be the year we made the numbers work for us.
Your Trustee Pal
Eden
P.S. The grace with which the Friends of Cowichan Kids have met the ongoing refusal of our board to hear their presentation critiquing the draft budget is inspiring. They have met every requirement of the policy governing delegations (1010 on our school district site) and yet have been denied. They will be heard one way or another. Please try to join us at the school board office on Beverley Street @ 6:30pm May 20th for the final reading of the budget. Your presence is required.
