By Jason Malloy
The Annapolis Valley Region School Board will have to find ways of running its system with $1 million less in provincial funding.
Nova Scotia school boards received their budget targets from Education Minister Ramona Jennex Friday in Halifax. Overall funding is being reduced by $13.4 million of 1.3 per cent from 2011-12 as the province tries to rein in costs and deal with declining student enrolment.
The latest cuts come a year after funding was slashed by 1.65 per cent or $17.6 million.
“Finding these savings will be very challenging on top of last year's reductions,” said superintendent Margo Tait. “The cumulative effect will make this a very difficult budget season.”
Boards also have to absorb all cost increases, which last year amounted to about $2 million for the Annapolis Valley board.
This coming year the board is expected to receive $117 million from the province. The $1million reduction represents about a 0.9 per cent decrease from the current year.
Individual board allocations vary depending on enrolment decline and the funding formula. The most any board is losing will be 2.1 per cent while only the provincial Acadian board is seeing an increase of 1.6 per cent.
The Cape Breton, South Shore and Strait boards are all facing the maximum reduction.
“I firmly believe that we have provided funding appropriate to match the needs of every student,” Jennex said.
The only differences students might see would be around class composition based on declining student enrolment, she added.
Nova Scotia Teachers Union Alexis Allen is not buying it.
"Students will be affected by these cuts; there is no avoiding it," she said. "Our schools are being cut to the core resulting in larger classes, fewer supports, less time for individual attention and fewer courses to meet individual needs."
She said it is impossible to imagine how the system will function with 700 or fewer teachers as a result of the two-year "slash and burn" approach to education.
Former education minister Karen Casey is also baffled.
“2,200 fewer students doesn’t change the number of buses we will need and it doesn’t make heating our schools any cheaper,” Casey said. “These cuts will impact students, the classroom and it will hurt student outcomes.”
The province said teaching and support staff reductions could be achieved through attrition with only slight differences for individual boards. The province said no permanent teacher was laid off in 2011-12.
Jennex said the department has reiterated to boards to continue to plan for a 50 per cent reduction in the number of consultants by 2013-14.
“They grew exponentially over the last number of years, and to tell you the truth, it’s not showing in the results we’re getting from our children,” she said.
“Our math scores and our literacy scores are not increasing, and in some cases, we’re losing ground.”
The declining student population is projected to continue until 2020 when there are expected to be 112,000 students in the system, compared to the 127,000 currently enrolled. The 2020 figure would result in the same number of children that were in Nova Scotia classrooms in 1910.
What they had to say:
"The province will continue to invest significantly in the success of our children, while living within our means."
Ramona Jennex, education minister
“The NDP should have done their homework and provided leadership as to where school boards could make cost reductions.”
Jamie Baillie, Progressive Conservative leader
“This government seems content to wage war on the education system by cutting more than $50 million from the system in two years… When we balance the books on the backs of students and families we are setting our children up to fail.”
Karen Casey, Liberal education critic
"You simply cannot expect to get more by spending less on education in a province that is already the second lowest in per pupil funding in Canada."
Alexis Allen, Nova Scotia Teachers Union president
