Budget Challenge 2010 - Public Input Needed

The North Van School District is asking parents to comment on what its priorities should be as it tries to rebuild its budget in the face of $10 million worth of cuts over the next 3 years.

But rather than keep looking at this from a perspective of annual cuts the district is trying to rebuild the budget around a plan for a longer term, sustainable district structure. But what that structure is is unclear.

The District needs our help to decide what we as a community want the school district to provide for our children. Beyond the mandated curriculum how do we want to deliver education to our children, what is it that we want to be unique to North Vancouver and our children's experience in the district, what is it about how we deliver education in North Vancouver that we value vs. what can be changed.

The process for this discussion is being called "Budget Challenge 2010" and the next public meeting is on Nov. 18th. This meeting is being designed around a "world cafe" model to enable groups to discuss specific issues and considerations as part of this process.

More info on this can be found on the Budget Challenge 2010 web page

Leading into this next discussion the district is currently seeking public input to decide what those themes of discussion need to be. They have asked the public to respond to two questions

1. What are the areas that you are most concerned be maintained and preserved?

2. What areas do you believe could be reduced to enable us to maintain priority services?

These are open ended questions but they form the basis of this very important discussion about what we want the District to deliver for our Children.

To respond to these questions please complete the Districts input document  and send your responses by November 9th to the Budget Challenge address.

Thanks