PRDTU raises flags over SD52 plan to see Itinerant teachers bear brunt of School District budget cuts

Teachers in the Prince Rupert School District with no fixed classroom to call home will be the ones to feel the cuts from the SD52 Board, that as Board of Education officials look to bring their 3 million dollar budget deficit back to balance.

The early details of the SD52 plan to address that deficit came out of the Tuesday School Board meeting with School officials seemingly set to achieve savings of $l.2 million dollars by cutting up to thirteen itinerant teaching positions.

The teachers are full time staff members and are assigned classrooms around the city as required.

The Budget preparation material from March, may have telegraphed part of the reason for the cut to the teaching staff,  with the School Board notes showing that labour costs make up close to 88 percent of the Budget and with the salaries for the teaching staff considered over budget.

Information screens from the SD52 Budget Presentation
from March of this year

The question as to why so many itinerant teachers were hired without the apparent knowledge of the Board of Education members will be the subject of an investigation, with the members following up on a motion from Board trustee Tina Last to conduct the review of the situation.

The revelation of the volume of positions created under the itinerant category, one that the School District Board members note they had not been informed of.

For students, parents and staff members Tuesday's Zoom meeting did provide for a bit of certainty with a music program, library and behavioural interventionist positions all to be kept from the chopping block.

As of yet, the School District has not provided a full account of the range of measures which they plan to take as they work towards reducing the 2021 budget.

That lack of information is one area of concern for the Prince Rupert  and District Teachers Union which issued a statement this morning in response to some of the Board's actions.

Their release indicating of some deep concern when it comes to the decision by the SD52 Board of Trustees to cut teaching staff by over 8% next year. 

The PRDTU noting that layoffs are unnecessary, will not solve the problem that the school district is trying to solve, and take resources away from students. 

The teachers' union officials calling on the Board of Trustees to maintain core instructional programs and focus on cutting wasteful spending and expensive overhead instead of cutting teachers.

“Make no mistake about it, these cuts will impact student learning. The School Board is taking resources away from students and undermining the morale of their staff and retention of teachers in the process. An 8% reduction in teachers is the wrong priority for Prince Rupert students. These cuts are deeply impacting the laid off employees, who have started to build their lives in Prince Rupert and who have few options to remain in town without the job security promised to them when they were recruited to work for SD52. Trust has been broken and this impacts all teachers, not only the 8% of our membership who will be laid off at end of this school year.” -- PRDTU president Gabriel Bureau

For their part the Teacher's Union wants SD52 to balance the budget by reducing administrative costs, travel and overhead and also challenges the magnitude of the fiscal shortfall.

“From what we’ve been told, the bulk of these cuts will end up simply shifting expenses from full-time teachers, who already know students and have a place in their school community, to on call teachers. These cuts will likely result in teacher shortages next year. That means classes will go without a teacher, learning resource teachers will be pulled out of student supports to cover absences, and other learning services to students will be impacted.” 

Going further, the PRDTU President notes that creating teacher shortages will have an impact on student supports and most likely will produce little in actual savings.

“Increasing teacher shortfalls and removing teachers from classrooms is never the way to save money in a school district. Student services, core teaching, and other learning programs should be the top priority of the school district.”

As for advice for the Board of Education the PRDTU is calling for the restoration of the laid off teachers, as well as a commitment from the School District to commit to that should the enrolment estimates and other budget assumptions prove to be incorrect.

“There’s time to fix this,. Even if that means recalling the laid off teachers in September. That won’t be ideal, but it’s better than going through an entire school year with teacher shortages due to an ill-advised budget for the year.”

You can keep up with the discussion on education from our archive page, where we will updated notes on any response from the School District to the PRDTU feedback, as well as to when the Board releases more details as to how they plan to address the budget dilemma.