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| SD52 hosted a stakeholder consultation session on February 16 |
The second element of The Prince Rupert School District's Budget planning and consultation process took place last week, with the Board of Education hosting four stakeholder consultations on February 16th.
The four participants included the International Union of Operating Engineers, which represent the large number of support staff workers at the District.
Haemant Sawh from the union provided for guidance that impacts on support staff workers would have unintended consequences on students.
They expressed concerns over some of the recent training for Educational assistants, noting of the range of special needs requirements within the secondary and elementary system.
Mr. Sawh also spoke of the need for Librarians and Secretarial posts, outlining some options that the Board could make use of for those posts. He also highlighted the challenges in recruiting maintenance and other positions in the District.
He also noted of the challenges that two week spring breaks create other issues for some staffers and the impact of those two week breaks for some families of students in the community.
Colleen Wiens raised concerns about how the School District is getting word out about job opportunities in the community, observing that they use Indeed which she notes isn't widely read, she suggested that the School District could make better use of its website towards advertising open positions.
Roberta Edzerza was the second speaker of the session, she and her delegation put their focus on updating the Board on the work in Indigenous Education in the District.
They recounted some of the work in developing the language program noting of the success in embedding it into the schools across the District. the also explored some of the pressures from the Ministry towards Indigenous education across the province, something that they noted added to the level of work for their team.
Cameron Hill expanded on some of those themes on the expanding volume of work that the province and District require in First Nations Led Education. He outlined thoughts related to teacher recruitment and retention in the programs, suggesting that the District revisit the idea of creating a Prince Rupert area teacher training program.
The PRDTU provided for the third presentation, their focus was to highlight the impact that cutbacks in the classroom both in teaching and EA positions would have on the student population, observing that any cuts if they need to be done should come from areas away from the student.
They also suggested that no other positions or projects be created within the District until the savings have been found to continue to keep the focus on students. There were also concerns expressed about the loss of qualified experienced teachers and the reliance now on uncertified teachers to fill those previous positions.
The Prince Rupert Principal's Association wrapped up the presentations on the night, Jeremy Janz provided an overview of how the administrators enhance the educational interconnections of all students , observing that many of the members of the Association bring a mix of administration and teaching elements to their work.
He also observed of the experience gained by VP's serves the District well in areas of employee succession as more and more senior administrators begin to retire. Mr Janz also highflying the fiduciary duties that the membership perform on behalf of the Board and how the Administrator's role is to support School Board objectives.
The Administrate also outlined notes on 0-K Childcare impacts, burnout effects of the post and the amount of time in a day that they deliver to the District as part of their duties.
All told the four participants and District trustees put just over an hour of discussions to the consultation process on the night.
Since the School District continues to use a hybrid in-person/Zoom process for its sessions, the audio/video from the Consultation meeting is not always easy to hear or clear to view.
The next public consultation on the SD52 Schedule is set for Tuesday April 11th, at which time the District will report back to the public on the input received and offer notes on related Ministry Funding.
The School District is still accepting feedback on this years Consultation through an online survey which you can access here.
The Board of Education does however have a Special Regular Open School Board Meeting called for this Monday evening at 7:00 PM.
Though the scope of what is up for discussion has not been provided other than a notation that the agenda is related to the Amended Budget.
More notes on Education in Prince Rupert can be explored through our archive page.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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