Is it being used equally?
This question has been, quite understandably, a common visitor to my inbox. Budget decisions form a goodly portion of the responsibility our Board trustees hold.
My Response
My priorities would stay aligned with the 2018-2019 Budget in which a significant investment was made in academic staffing. We need teachers in schools and we need appropriate support for those teachers in the classrooms. Secure funding must be in place for Educational Assistants, Guidance Staff, and professional such as Social Workers and Speech-Language Pathologists who are required to ensure that students have the resources and support they need to succeed in our schools.
Beyond that, I am a staunch supporter of both the Arts and Physical Education. I believe that both are equally important in the development of well-rounded and young people and would prioritize those issues. Beyond specific priorities for funding, I would add that I am concerned with the equitable distribution of Board resources across the system - I think we need to work hard to eliminate have and have not schools - whether we are talking about access to technology like data projectors in classrooms or air conditioning to deal with hot schools. This latter issue is a big can of worms that must be opened and dealt with; creative models of funding the retrofitting of our schools with appropriate air conditioning systems may need to be explored if we are to deal with this situation meaningfully and in a timely fashion.
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