Dear Editor:
Re: District must make $3.1 million in cuts, Burnaby NOW, April 11.
Ms. Moreau fails to note that these expected cuts are likely just a first round exercise. Why?
District secretary-treasurer Greg Frank told budget meeting attendees - including me - that Burnaby enrolled 23,391 school-age children in 2013/14 and expects just 23,406 in three years (2016/17).
"Static" enrolment - in a context of rising costs and fixed operating grants - is a strategic recipe for chronic fiscal deficit. Not surprisingly, Mr. Frank's three-year financial forecast shows a cumulative deficit of $22.5 million.
No one at the budget meeting - parent, teacher, or custodian - wants these expected cuts. So why do the current trustees embrace policies that only compel cuts? There are alternatives, if trustees would abandon ideology and embrace intelligence, as I noted in my own presentation to them.
They could adopt policies to draw additional students to underutilized schools to increase revenue. (And there are more school-age children to be found right here in Burnaby!)
The last census found 29,578 local kids aged five to 18. But only 23,400 such children are in local public schools.
So an estimated 6,000 Burnaby kids are being educated outside Burnaby public schools (see www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/Demography/PopulationEstimates.aspx).
These missing kids have significant budgetary implications. Victoria automatically provides $6,900 (plus certain "need-based" supplements) to any public school enrolling an eligible school-age child.
And Burnaby's average per-pupil funding (base plus supplementary) now reaches $9,033 (see Chart c-12 www.bced.gov.bc.ca/accountability/district/revenue).
This implies that attracting just 1,000 new enrolments (or 15 per cent of 6,000) could add $6.9 to $9 million to annual school board revenue (or $21 to $27 million over three years).
Remember that $22.5-million deficit Mr. Frank projects? Giving school board staff direction to pursue revenue could eliminate this deficit, restore cuts and even add services.
I think your readers - particularly teachers, custodians and parents of children now in the public schools - would like to know why the trustees are in such a cost-cutting rut.
Why won't they reach out to parents of children living in Burnaby but not now in local public schools - particularly, but not only, private school parents?
This ought to be an easy dialogue given the economic advantage that B.C. public school administrators hold over their private school rivals in any competition to attract parents.
Children enrolled in private school draw one half of the public funding granted for children enrolled in public school.
The difference ($3,500 vs. $7,000) cumulates to $42,000 over 12 years and must be covered by tuition fees. (Private school parents also pay full school taxes too.)
Such raw cost considerations ought to give Burnaby trustees the undivided "attention" of private school parents.
But what are the trustees doing with this considerable marketing advantage for public schools? Apparently not enough - given Mr. Frank's "static" enrolment projection.
I urge them to at least try strategic thinking - instead of ideological thinking - for a change of pace!
For example, they could try surveying the parents of non-public school children to determine what programs or priorities might attract these parents to the local public schools.
They could tout innovations such as the Roots of Empathy program or Burnaby's music programs.
They could consider additional "magnet" programs.
How about some "AP" (advanced placement) public schools: places where the AP program is the norm instead of the exception?
Above all, I hope that the trustees will embrace the following maxim: no organization - private or public - ever cut its way to greatness.
And at least they should give Mr. Frank and his colleagues the opportunity to try attracting more children before they cut further into existing programs and teaching positions.
G. Bruce Friesen, Burnaby
