School District No. 46 (SD46) board of trustees refused to label schools with low enrolment “at risk” of closure in order to receive funding from the Ministry of Education’s new Rural Education Enhancement Fund (REEF) – and the board outlined several issues with REEF in a letter to Education Minister Mike Bernier last week.
Board chair Betty Baxter said the ministry was offering money for schools with fewer than 100 students but said the implication that those schools must be labelled “at risk” of closure was a “dangerous precedent.”
SD46 has three schools with fewer than 100 students and technically those schools would have qualified for funding if labelled “at risk.”
Baxter said SD46 has worked hard over the years to find “whatever creative means we can to keep those schools open,” such as revising timetables and offering new opportunities for students at schools with low enrolment, as the board values keeping community schools open on the Sunshine Coast.
“To label them ‘at risk’ to qualify for funding was fundamentally unfair to our community,” Baxter said.
“We felt that it was more important to be true to our commitment to the community than to meet the ministry’s criteria of naming schools ‘at risk of closure’ to achieve more money.”
Baxter also said the amount of money being offered by the Ministry of Education wasn’t enough to keep schools open in some cases.
A press release from the ministry said the funding granted would be equal to a school district’s expected savings from closing a school.
Baxter said the Campbell River school board applied for funds but the money they received didn’t include any funding for maintenance or improvements to schools.
“So that district sent the funds back because they weren’t sufficient to open the schools – an exercise in frustration,” Baxter said.
In the letter sent to Bernier on July 15, the board outlined all its concerns and chastised the minister for the timing of the announcement, which gave schools 14 days to submit an application for funding at the end of June, well after budgets had been adopted.
“Our board chose not to apply for the REEF funds as we believed the damage to trust and uncertainty about ongoing programs would have a negative affect in our community and far outweigh any funds received,” the letter stated.
“Once again we ask that you put the education of students first in your policy decisions and consult with school boards throughout the province on the provision of adequate, stable long-term funding for public education.”
