Trustees challenged to avoid layoffs
Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 18/01) - Territorial teachers are challenging Yellowknife Education District No. 1 trustees to avoid teacher layoffs.
They say an extra $429,000 the GNWT will provide in September can be re-directed, but the board says that money has already been spent in a controversial budget that's been proposed.
It will be eaten up by fuel costs, expected enrolment increases and efforts to retain one teaching staff member for every 17 students as required by law, said board chair Dan Schofield. The board is trying to do that while wiping out a $1.2-million deficit.
Union rep Chriss Tricoteux said the government's extra funding "is more than enough to offset" cost increases.
But she admits the union did not professionally analyze the budget because it would be an "insult" to the school board bean counters.
Class size major issue
Parents at recent public meetings have said their classrooms are too big, with up to 30 students in many classes.
The board had been bettering the 17:1 ratio to attain the national average of 16 to one.
That figure includes teacher aides, principals and vice-principals.
What the board and the union refuse to talk about is big raises that may be handed to teachers this fall.
Extra funding for that isn't included in the board's draft budget, said corporate services director Steve Richards.
Parent Roy Desjarlais wants vice-principals to do more teaching to reduce administration costs, something Schofield said is worth looking at.
They teach half-time while doing administrative work the other half of school days.
Schofield said the difference between what's being funded and what the board provides is 19 teachers which accounts for the deficit.
"Somebody negotiated Yellowknife away in a trade," Schofield told a May 15 board finance committee meeting. The GNWT acknowledged Yellowknife district No. 1 is funded at over 18 students per staff in order to keep ratios lower in remote communities.
"We were told bluntly that's fair and equitable" by officials high up in the Education Department, trustee Terry Brooks said.
