Spending Freeze, Budget consultations among themes of interest from SD52 meeting notes from Tuesday session

The February Board meeting for SD52 held online Tuesday evening put the focus on financials, with the notes from this week's monthly gathering exploring how the Board plans to maintain a balanced budget for the rest of this year, as well as what the Budget consultation process will look like for the rest of the month.

Towards their Balanced Budget work, Secretary-Treasurer Cam McIntyre outlined that the Board has put a spending freeze in place, that in order to ensure that the District can finish the year with a balanced budget. 

Many of the changes now in place will be provided as part of the Amended Annual Budget, which will allow the Board of Education to provide input on necessary budget reductions.

As part of that process, the School Board will host a Special Open Meeting on Tuesday, February 23rd at 6:30 to explore further the changes required for the Amended Budget for 2020-21. 

Those interested in participating in that session should contact Tamara Dickens at Tamara.Dickens@sd52.bc.ca

While the amend the current budget, the School District continues its work on the 2021-2022 version, with the next part of their consultation process to come up on February 23, 2021 at 7PM. 

The online public participation forum  will also see the District's partner groups making presentations. Pre-registration is required to participate in that session as well, you can do see by contacting Ms. Dickers at the same email address as above, but be sure to specify if you wish to attend both online sessions, or which one holds your interest.

Also at Tuesday's meeting the Board received a presentation from Principal Jeremy Janz of Pacific Coast School, with the Board receiving a video overview of the learning process underway during the current pandemic conditions. 

The video and contribution from the students, one that was well received by the Board and its Chair James Horne.

“The Board of Education really enjoyed seeing pictures of students engaging in their learning in outdoor settings. Hearing directly from students in the video was a highlight for the Board.” --  Board Chair James Horne

The School District trustees also received a report on the pace of Indigenous Education Growth from 2019-20, with Roberta Edzerza, the District Principal of Indigenous Education and Lori Burger, Administrator of Truth and Recociliaion presenting the Draft document.

Their work to date provided for an update on the achievements of Indigenous students in the district, and highlights the many ways Indigenous language, culture, history, knowledge, skills and people make learning engaging for all students in the district. 

The final report is expected to come to the March meeting of the Board of Education.

The notes on Tuesday's session can be explored here.

The review of Tuesday's meeting from the Board makes no mention of the recent outbreak of potential COVID exposure cases across the School District, which on Monday had included four new schools.

As we noted yesterday, Charles Hays and Pacific Coast School both provided notices to their school community members advising of recent potential exposure situations at their facilities.

Further notes on Education across the Northwest can be found from our archive page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.