District Restructuring 2010

The School Board has now met and made their decisions coming out of the restructuring process.

• The school board has decided to close Plymouth in June 2010 and commit themselves to the 3 into 1 consolidation of Seymour Heights, Blueridge and Plymouth as soon as a replacement school can be built at Seymour Heights.
• The board has decided to close Fromme Elementary in June 2010
• The board have decide to close and re-invent all of the alternative programs (Keith Lynn, Windsor House, 3rd step, YLC) under a single umbrella in a yet to be named facility sometime between June 2011 and June 2012. 

As of this writing parents at Fromme and Plymouth will have submitted their decisions regarding school choice for next year, some of which will have been easy and some incredibly difficult as parents grapple with a complex set of changes. It has not been an easy process and it is not yet really over, but at least on those two fronts we have an answer.

The decision to consolidate all of the alternate programs into a yet to be defined new program remains a difficult challenge. The working groups came to the conclusion that this was the most difficult path for these groups. It will take a lot of dedication, effort and resources to define a new program that can meet the needs of the students in all of those programs. I believe that in making this decision the board has made an optimistic step and is asking all the people involved in those programs to take a similarly optimistic step in order to create a new program. I'm sure it will  be hard and it will take a lot of work to define this new way of doing things, there are what appear to be many unresolvable situations in this move, but my hope is that the dedicated people on those teams will be able to find a way to create something even better out of this situation and that they will be permitted the time, resources and flexibility to do so.

Final submissions to restructuring process

April 15th at noon is the deadline for final input into the District's discussions related to French Immersion all-day kindergarten, reorganization of Alternate Programs and the potential closures of Blueridge, Fromme, Plymouth and Seymour Heights. 

The Trustees are reading the submissions to restructuring2010@nvsd44.bc.ca and anyone who still wishes to provide input into the discussion should do so by that deadline.

Everyone deserves the chance to make a respectful case for their children and their schools. So, while the working group work is over, the process isn't and we can help make it a success by making any final submissions before the April 15th deadline.
To make their decisions on these matters the Trustees need to consider the pros and cons with regard to the financial impact, impact of the redistribution on children, impact on the long-term capital plans and many other factors. Public input provided in a way that looks to the future of the district and considers the impact on all the students, faculty and parents not just the ones at a single school will help them most to make their decisions.
Anyone wishing to offer final input should send it to the restructuring2010@nvsd44.bc.ca email address.

Budget Update: $6 million deficit for 2010/11

At Tuesday's board meeting School District Secretary-Treasurer Irene Young updated the Trustees on the budget situation based on the new funding formula and annual grant allocations from the Ministry.

There have been a number of changes to the way funding is determined this year, with the Ministry touting increases to education funding but the reality is that the increases have not kept up with costs. Making this worse is that the ministry is shifting even more of the funding this year to be provided on a per student basis. On the surface this appears reasonable but in effect it disconnects the funding from the real costs of local education such as salaries, staff, maintenance, utilities and buildings all of which go up every year.

This budget forecast takes into account a number of changes coming into effect in the next 3 years.

• New ministry funding formula
• Enrollment decline grant and teacher reductions
• Teacher salary increases (2%)
• Pension increases (1%)
• MSP + WCB increases
• Annual facilities grant reinstatement ($1.5m of prior $3m)
• All day kindergarten implementation funding ($200,000)
• Ridgeway Annex & Balmoral closure savings

The net effect of all the changes is that if the district maintains the current teachers, staff, schools then the district will have a shortfall of $6 million for next year and a need to cut a further $3 million from the budget over the next two years.

This year, 2009/2010 the school districts budget was $137 million a year, with $123 million of that being staffing costs.

• In 2010/2011 the budget needs to be cut to $131 million a year.
• In 2011/2012 it will be $128.5 million a year
• In 2012/2013 it will be down to $126 million per year.

Balancing the budget means that the district will need to cut $10 million from the annual budget by 2013.

Understanding Annual Budget Changes

One of the challenges in this years budget discussions has been understanding the annual versus cumulative budget impacts. The table below attempts to sort all this out now that we know the ministries budget plans for next year.

• The forecast budget change is what impact the known revenue and cost changes will have relative to the previous years budget.
• The cumulative annual budget impact shows how the changes appear relative to the current 2009 budget, which is the baseline the district is working from as the district considers its cuts for next year.
• The cumulative funding shortfall adds these year over year deficits up to understand how much money in total is being cut from the system over the next three years.
• The Forecast Annual Budget is how much in total funding the District will have to pay for salaries and operations in the coming years.

When you look at this in the context of where the money is spent on staffing versus operational costs the impact of these cuts on staff and students is going to be significant. We see that in the 23 items the administration have come up with to cut costs for next year and we see it in the proposal to close schools. These are already deep cuts, where will the $3 million dollars in further cuts come from over the next two years?

$ Millions	2009	2010	2011	2012
Forecast Budget Change (year to year)		-$6.1	-$2.4	-$1.2
Cumulative Annual Budget Impact (rel.2009)		-$6.1	-$8.5	-$9.7
Cumulative Funding Shortfall (rel.2009)		-$6.1	-$14.5	-$24.2
Forecast Annual Budget	$137	$130.8	$128.4	$127.2
Staffing Costs (salaries + benefits)	$123.5
Supplies, Operations and Utilities	$12.9
Capital Expenses	$0.6

Alternate Program - March 18th Discussion Summary

In the alternative programs working group last Thursday we had an excellent discussion. The process we followed was to brainstorm different scenarios under three key categories: Consolidation, Closure and Cohabitation.

• Consolidation means the programs would merge together or with mainstream programs while trying to preserve key elements that support the students
• Closure means the elimination of a program
• Cohabitation means that the programs share a building, some resources and possibly administration but the programs retain their identify and special approaches. Presently all alternative programs except the Keith Lynn program cohabit the Lucas Centre.

Each group came up with quite a number of scenarios. I was encouraged by the range of ideas and the open minded approach. We posted all these idea on the wall then broke into teams of two. Each pair then added plusses and minuses to each worksheet. This enabled the group to capture many perspectives in a rapid way. These will be consolidated for discussion in the third session.

We then changed direction to go back to a discussion we had in session 1 about how to collect student input to the working group. While everyone valued the idea that student input would be important there were different views on how to collect this data without causing the students un-needed stress. In some of the programs the students have challenges which would make direct participation in the workgroup difficult. After discussing the issues off-line with key stakeholders the facilitator recommended that we not include direct input from the students at this stage, but that the representative from each program develop a suitable method that fits their individual character. The focus of the desired input will be on any issues with transition should one of the proposed changes be implemented. Ideas were then shared as to how to do this.

In conclusion we reviewed our action plan for the next meeting and concluded that there would be three homework assignments. Assignment one was to review the minutes and data collected in the meeting to ensure that it was captured correctly. Assignment two was to gather more feedback from stakeholders outside the team on the options. Assignment three was to examine all the plusses and minuses to try to see common themes so that we could structure the conversation efficiently in session three.

Thanks to Mike Sexsmith for sending this summary

NVPAC Restructuring Survey

NVPAC are asking all parents to complete a survey to help us understand parent perspective on the issues being discussed as part of the working group restructuring meetings.

Please help us to get this message and the link below out to parents throughout the district. Input on restructuring from all parents in North Vancouver School District is valuable to NVPAC. The survey has 18 questions and should take about 10 minutes.


Thank you for your time. We would like to have the survey sent out right away so we can have the results by March 29th, compile them and have them made available to the community before the next working group meeting .
 
NVPAC Restructuring Survey

Windsor FOS Working Group Discussion - March 18th

The Windsor FOS discussion last night began with Ian Abercrombie providing a more detailed rationale concerning the potential replacement of Blueridge, Lynnmour, Plymouth and Seymour Heights with 2 new schools at Seymour Heights and Lynnmour.
Roundtable Discussion
The discussion then provided an opportunity for the groups involved to share their positions on the potential closure of schools and on the budget discussions from the previous meeting.

• First the group agrees that we all want to have a long term plan and stability in the area and we recognize that the immediate decision needs to consider the longer term replacement plans.
• Second we all agree that we need to do everything we can to ensure the best possible transition for students to the new configuration.

The time required to allow open consideration of different positions meant that the group struggled to gain momentum in terms of comparing the advantages and disadvantages of different potential configurations of the schools for next year. It is important that everyone be able to openly share perspective in this process but doing so takes time and the group may need more time than the one meeting remaining to cover all the issues.
Homework: Considering the alternatives
To help things along and prepare for the next discussion the group has been asked to do our homework and consider the potential advantages and disadvantages of the possible configurations for Sept 2010 in a number of areas and to bring both that feedback and identification of potential transition issues for discussion at the next meeting on April 1st.
What are the pluses, minuses and issues if next year students will be attending Blueridge and Plymouth, Blueridge and Seymour Heights, or Plymouth and Seymour Heights?
For each potential scenario we have been asked to consider these issues and submit feedback to the group by March 26th under the headings:

• Transportation to and from the school
• Impact on School Community
• Safety
• Opportunity for extra-curricular programs
• Opportunity for community use
• Access to new educational technologies
• Impact on children
• Physical Plant
• Opportunities  for Community development

To that list I would also add consideration of:

• Demographics
• School and Classroom Utilization
• Location
• Classroom opportunities

If you have considerations + or - that you'd like us to share with the working group please share them with us and we will get them on the list. (send to info@northvanpac.org)