A jump in the number of foreign students going to school in the Tri-Cities is helping School District 43 cover costs incurred by the teachers' strike and lower than projected student enrolment.
International education students, who pay $13,000 per year to attend school here, signed up in unprecedented numbers this year - 400 more than the 1,150 who enrolled in 2013/'14 - resulting in $1.4 million more in net revenues than expected from $20 million in fees.
The funds will enable the district to cover $500,000 in salaries for teachers who headed back to school Sept. 19 to prepare classes after job action (after lobbying efforts failed to squeeze funds from the province owing to the fact the money was outside the teachers' contract). The district was also short on enrolment by 48.56 FTE students and that resulted in $590,000 less funding.
In both cases, foreign fees will cover the difference and schools will have some money for supplies and resources, unlike in recent years, as long as they're "prudent" with their spending, said secretary Treasurer Mark Ferrari whose financial report released Tuesday was the first of the school year.
Ferrari assured trustees the district will balance its budget this year and said he would present more details in a second-quarter report at the end of February.
Meanwhile, new SD43 superintendent Patricia Gartland defended the use of international ed. fees to balance the budget and pay for core education costs, saying the district needs and appreciates all the additional revenues it can get.
"It keeps us stable, it will help us move to where we will be sufficient with ministry funding," she said. "We are always going to want additional funding wherever we can generate it."
