School District 43 will receive $16.9 million for new teaching positions after the province reached a deal with the teachers to restore contract language from a 2002 agreement.
But as the Coquitlam Teachers’ Association meets with SD43 administrators this week to hammer out some details prior to Tuesday’s public budget meeting, speculation from both sides is that the funds won’t be enough to fully implement the language as required by a Supreme Court ruling.
Thursday, CTA president Ken Christensen said the province based the funding calculation on student FTEs (full-time equivalency) not on the numbers laid out in the SD43 15-year-old agreement for class size and composition numbers.
“Those numbers will change,” Christensen told The Tri-City News. “What’s a priority for us now is appropriate funding and restoration of the language in our collective agreement. We’ll be enforcing that.”
Although both the teachers and the school district are welcoming the addition of funding, the district’s finance team is anticipating it will take “a number of months” to fully meet the requirements of the collective agreement.
The next school year should be “viewed as a transition year,” Chris Nicolls, the district’s assistant secretary treasurer, said at a board meeting Tuesday.
He said each school will be putting together its “needs budget” and submitting documents laying out any shortfall so the district can apply to the province for more funding.
The restoration will require SD43 kindergarten classes to have a maximum of 20 students, compared to 22 now, and Grade 1 to 3 classes to have no more than 22 students, compared to 24 today.
Shop and home economics classes will only have up to 24 students, compared to 30 students per class today. As well, special education classes and secondary lab classes will be smaller.
