After hearing disappointment and frustration from teachers and parents about the proposed preliminary budget, the Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows school board has made changes to incorporate an increase in staffing and supports for students.
About 20 teachers and a few parents packed a Budget Committee of the Whole meeting, on Wednesday, April 19, to tell school trustees they were not happy with the proposed budget.
They felt that the budget did not address classroom conditions, which Martin Dmitrieff, 1st vice president of the Maple Ridge Teachers Association, said is missing supports for students and staff.
“Teachers in essence are bending themselves to the point of breaking in order to meet those needs,” said Dmitrieff to The News.
Dmitrieff claimed that students are receiving services that are underfunded and the district is not ensuring the services are being put in place.
This has led to teachers stretching themselves so thin that they are burning out and locally this has led to “extensive WorkSafeBC injury leaves”, added Dmitrieff.
A passionate letter was read to the school board on behalf of the Parent Advisory Council at Yennadon Elementary asking for sufficient funding for resources and supports.
In the letter, PAC president Craig Towers said they are in need of: adequate levels of support teachers and educational assistants; improved sensory or calming spaces with adequate equipment; and more counselling supports for children who witness traumatic incidents, including student violence and behaviours.
“Yennadon Elementary School, like other schools in our district and surrounding districts, are seeing an increase of students with behavioural and special needs,” said Towers in the letter.
“As we promote an inclusive classroom environment, due to complex and diverse needs there have been dangerous and traumatizing situations for our staff and students, resulting in sometimes daily but more often weekly classroom evacuations,” he said.
And, Towers added, staff are not receiving the adequate resources to manage the situations safely. He said without the supports there is now an environment where some students even fear attending school.
“The district is operating on minimum ratios of staff to students with special needs. The district has the ability to choose to staff schools with more staff but currently chooses not to,” he said.
“The normalization of classroom settings that routinely accepts violence or unsafe behaviours is not acceptable….As a society, we do not normalize domestic/family violence for our children, why is this an acceptable practice within the public school system?” he asked.
READ MORE: Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows School Board expects future funding shortfalls
Chair of the school board, Elaine Yamamoto, explained that there were five presentations at the meeting that focused on: increases to the proposed staffing allocations for racial inclusivity and equity, as well as at the Yennadon Annex; increases to support staff allocations at Yennadon Elementary; increases to staffing allocations to the continuing education department and online learning; and budget reallocations to increase school-level staffing.
She said she was both surprised and pleased by the number of people who attended the meeting.
“We sincerely welcome and appreciate all input on the proposed preliminary budget and thank the presenters for taking the time to attend our public meeting and share feedback,” said Yamamoto. “This was a great level of engagement, which we sincerely hope will continue.”
In addition to the meeting feedback on the proposed budget was also collected through an online survey, budget roundtables, written submissions, and an Aboriginal Education Advisory Committee. The online survey collected feedback from 192 individuals.
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Some of the new changes include a new section added to the budget that contains an overview of the continuing education and online learning program, revenue and expense information from the 2019/20 school year extending to the 2026/27 budgets, and a commitment to continue to evaluate and enhance the programs, “to ensure we meet the evolving needs of our community of learners.
Staffing time will be increased for the helping teacher position for racial inclusivity and equity.
School staffing at Yennadon Elementary will also be increased. And a clarification was provided that $820,000 will be used to support the allocation of education assistants and coteaching staff as needs arise throughout the year.
One positive addition to the proposed budget is funding for “unique, what you might call, regulation spaces for students,” explained Dmitrieff. These are spaces where students can go for a portion of time because, for that moment, they require a separate space outside of the classroom setting.
Approval of the final 2023/24 budget balancing proposals and adoption of the 2023/24 Preliminary Budget was expected at last night’s public meeting on Wednesday, April 26.
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