Sea to Sky School District board members are hoping the province will pony up funds for standardized training, money for raises and a streamlined process for accommodating increased student growth.
In the school board’s latest committee of the whole meeting, trustees voted in favour of presenting those requests to the BC School Trustees Association or BCSTA, in the coming weeks.
The idea is the BCSTA would then pass on the appeal to the provincial government.
Should the association agree to back the district, it will add greater political weight to the requests, which could make it more likely the province will respond favourably.
The first appeal comes in light of restored language in teachers’ contracts this year.
The school district anticipates there will likely be a greater need for training, as new school staff will be added, and in some cases those already with jobs may have their roles augmented.
Assistant Supt. Jody Langlois said that if every school district in B.C. takes care of training individually, it’ll be hard to maintain consistency throughout the province.
Therefore, she floated the idea of asking the province to provide training modules that can be used by school districts across the province.
“If we standardized them and the ministry distributed them, then we’re all on a level playing field,” Langlois said.
The second request could help the school district bring in $200,000 to pay for school district staff raises.
“For a small district like us, it’s very impactful,” said Supt. Lisa McCullough.
The school district is expected to ask the BCSTA to request that the province pay for raises for those who are considered exempt and executive staff.
Exempt staff are workers at the school district who aren’t members of any union. People who work at the school district office are one example.
Examples of executive staff would be principals and vice principals.
If the province doesn’t end up footing that bill, the raises will go ahead anyway, but the school district will have to find the money somewhere else.
The final thing on the school district’s laundry list will be a request for the province to hire a professional demographer.
It’s hoped that this will allow schools to begin renovations more quickly.
Under the current system, whenever there appears to be too many students in a school, portables are added before schools are allowed renovations to expand their buildings.
McCullough said using portables can be a costly stopgap measure, and are often not ideal.
“Traditionally, we’ve had to layer portables... to substantiate the need before there was a build,” she said.
However, if a provincial demographer was available, it would be easier to predict population growth, she said.
“If we did have that, we would probably have more convincing information sooner so you wouldn’t have to give a school... portables before you do an addition,” said McCullough.
This could make it easier to plan renovations that would enlarge schools ahead of time, which will hopefully limit the need for portables, she said.
“I would like to see the money spent one time,” she added.
