School cuts continue as deadline looms

The cuts to school programs in B.C. continue as districts vote on measures to balance their books in time to meet the April 30 deadline.

North Vancouver's school board voted to close a third school on Tuesday night in order to deal with a $6.7 million budget shortfall.

Fromme Elementary School will close its doors in June, saving the district an additional $400,000, said trustees.

In Burnaby, school trustees voted on Tuesday evening to trim the district's operating budget by $5.2 million next year by cutting 42 full time positions for the coming school year, reducing the number of times the grass is cut, and increasing class sizes.

Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid has argued the province has increased education funding every year since 2001, but many school trustees say the increases aren't enough to cover the rising costs the school districts face.

Burnaby chair Diana Mumford said she and other school trustees met with the minister in Victoria last weekend, but the two sides failed to find common ground on the funding issue.

"This last weekend was a really, really tough time for trustees throughout the province to sit there and watch the minister justify why we have to do this to our students. And to me, there was no justification," said Mumford.

Vancouver to vote Thursday

The Vancouver School Board votes on its budget on Thursday night. After agreeing to shorten the school year by 10 days on Monday, the district still faces a shortfall of nearly $17 million for the coming school year.

Documents released on Tuesday night detailed the district's plans to cut 162 full time jobs, including teachers, councillors, librarians, and support staff for gifted children and children with learning disabilities.

School interiors won't be painted next year and school thermostats will be lowered by one degree, and two programs will be cut — an elementary school band and strings program and a junior kindergarten for three-year-olds at three inner city schools — said Vancouver School Board chair Patti Bacchus.

"Talking to staff in the district for more than 30 years, it's never been like this and they can't believe the kinds of things that we are now actually looking at seriously to take away," she said.

Bacchus said many trustees don't know how they will vote on the revised budget and they have requested an emergency meeting with the Education Minister.

But earlier this month MacDiarmid appointed a special adviser to oversee the board's budgeting process, after the minister said she was concerned by comments made by the trustees.