Editor, The News:
The school board has proposed extra non-instructional days to save $200,000 worth of costs over the 2012- 2013 school year.
Yet the teachers want more money?
How many days will we need to add in the future to offset cost as the cost of education will continue to grow (it never seems to go down)?
Is there a time in the not so distant future when our kids will be at home more than they are at school? The proposed calendar includes 180 instructional days, just under half a year.
Let me propose this: online classes.
It is how the future is unfolding at any rate. Online classes would reduce the cost of buildings, their maintenance, utilities, bussing costs, administrative costs, and more.
Furthermore, it would eliminate school yard bullying, gender bias, race bias, and so on.
Now, while parents of younger children may not like this idea because socialization is important for development, particularly when children are young, and I would be inclined to agree, online classes would be functional for secondary school venues.
I have taken many online classes in the past few years and they are convenient and better taught than some classes, even at a university level, that I have had the fortune to participate in.
Let me, the tax payer, choose which teachers and classes my kid participates in, online, within the provincial curriculum. This method would appear to weed out the good teachers from the bad. And those teachers with high enrollment and exceptional results should be compensated accordingly. Would this not do away with all the crying for an increase in pay?
(Although it may increase outcry among union members who have seniority.)
Maybe instead of Facebook, it is time for Mr. Zuckerberg to develop Schoolbook? How ironic is that?
S. Mooney
Maple Ridge