School boards continue to piece together what Bill 22 would mean following a meeting of school superintendents and school board chairs from across the province last week in Vancouver.
Among the many components, the bill has removed district class size averages from the funding formula, meaning extra students would not disrupt a school’s structure, allowing the school district to react in advance of higher than expected enrollments.
The bill does away with the requirement for school districts to have a contingency fund in place to hire more teachers at the end of September once classroom numbers were finalized.
Without that requirement it would save the school district up to $500,000, money they had to spend by law after the school year started.
Now they don’t have to wait until late September to expand teaching staff, they can do it right away.
“If we can take $400,000 to $500,000 off of our deficit and use the Learning Improvement Fund in these creative ways, we win both ways,” Ganzert said.
SD20 classrooms rarely exceeded the 30-student class limit, he added.
BC’s Education Plan has five key elements: personalized learning for every student; quality teaching and learning; more flexibility and choice; high standards; and learning empowered by technology.
It focuses on maintaining basic core skills for students while developing key competencies such as critical thinking, insight and teamwork.