BC’s ministry of education is making changes to the funding structure for public schools that will see more money going toward vulnerable students, small school districts and rural schools.
The changes will come into effect for the 2012-2013 school year. Steve Hopkins, School District 47 secretary treasurer, said he will not know the specifics on how the changes will affect Powell River schools until the actual funding instructions come out in mid-March.
Hopkins sees the move as a way for the province to buffer the effect of the funding protection grant, which he said many feel is unsustainable. The new formula ensures that districts with declining enrolments will receive at least 98.5 per cent of the funding they received the year before. This is meant as a way to make progressive funding changes for districts with declining enrolments sustainable both locally and provincially.
For School District 47 this means a potential decline in funding of about $250,000 per year, should enrolment continue to fall, which is predicted. Hopkins said he has been told that if finances are good the ministry may honour 90 per cent of funding, or even more, but the funding formula will ensure at least 98.5 per cent. Hopkins said this makes more sense than the previous funding structure.
The funding formula is also aimed to help districts where the number of vulnerable students has increased. This will be accomplished by allocating more money to the CommunityLINK (Learning Includes Nutrition and Knowledge) program, which provides services to underprivileged students. Funding for this program exists outside of the overall formula. Hopkins said the program is active in Powell River and it will see either more funding or the same funding, but not less.
Hopkins made it clear that the changes to funding from the ministry are zero-sum changes and no new funds are being added. The move is instead a redistribution of funds that will mostly involve small school districts. School District 47 could benefit from the redistribution and the new grants but Hopkins said he has spoken with the ministry and most likely the district will also lose the one to one and a half per cent of funding. More information on the grants will come in mid-March.
“Until the instructions come it’s hard to know where we fall,” said Hopkins, “but if I’m trying to look ahead and think where it is, most of those things have a chance of benefitting us locally as we fit that rural model.”
The funding announcement states that, as a part of the redistribution, districts with fewer than 2,500 students will receive $1.375 million a year, more than in previous years. Again, Hopkins suspects that as this is a zero-sum redistribution of funds the district will lose some money elsewhere and end up with the same amount of money overall.
“That just seems a little too surreal for me,” said Hopkins. “I think it’s always important to know it’s a funding formula, but given there’s a ceiling it’s really primarily there just to distribute a fixed pot of money.”
