Job losses loom as Prince Rupert school district faces deficit of up to $3M

Parents and teachers in Prince Rupert, B.C., are bracing for deep cuts to classes and servicesafter the local school district warned of a deficit that could reach $3 million more than 10 per cent of its annual budget.

School District 52has yet to providean explanation for the shortfall, and school board chair James Horne is promising to investigate.

"The board will be pursuing those answers in due course, because we don't wish this to happen to us every year," Horne told CBC News. "We don't want to be making big cuts all the time."

The district is due to provide a fiscal update at a board meeting on May 11.

Kerrie Kennedy, president of the parent advisory council at the city's Roosevelt Elementary School, was shocked by the disclosure.

"I was like: 'What? How did that happen?Why did that happen? And why wasn't it caught before Christmas?'And I couldn't get those answers," Kennedytold CBC's Daybreak North.

She says the shortfall demands accountability, not just explanations.

"I'm shocked, I'm dismayed.And in the end, it's the children that are going to suffer."

Jobs and services under threat

B.C. school boards are mandated by provincial law to balance budgets each year.School District 52now has few options to balance its budgetoutside of cutting jobs and services.

In a preliminary report, the district has proposed cutting back on hours to library assistants, careers teachers, math helpers andthe district band teacher, as well as eliminating the behaviour interventionist position.

As many as 40 jobs are under threat, believes Gabriel Bureau, president of the Prince Rupert District Teachers' Union.

"We don't know how many positions will be cut.It's very stressful," Bureau said.

"But it will also have an impact on the quality of education. You can't cut a number of positions without impacting quality of education."

Symbia Barnaby, who's amember of the Haida Nation and hasfour special needs children in the Prince Rupert school system, said the prospect of cuts is "pretty concerning" especially the position of behaviour interventionist.

"Many of the Indigenous children in the district who do have special needs are actually not yet clinically diagnosed ... [nor] assessed,sheexplained on CBCDaybreak North.

"There isa misrepresentation of the need in the school district for the support of these kiddos."

Barnaby said the district's current behaviour interventionist has worked with the school and her undiagnosed children to come up with behaviour support plans, which have made all the difference to her children'ssuccess at school.

"Interventionists are tools we [use to] ensure that these schools are inclusive," she said.

Many school districts in B.C. are projecting multi-million-dollar shortfalls for the 2021-22 year, largely blaming budget pressures on the pandemic.

But the deficit in Prince Rupert, where the school districtis responsible for nine schools and around 2,000 students, is unusually severe.

By comparison, the Greater Victoria school district, which oversees 20,000 students in 44 schools,has reported a $7 million deficit.