District Parent Advisory Council

Parent concerns and issues with school district budget

April 3, 2013

Very pleased by “Expanded committee of the whole” and consultation process

We do need more time for going out for consultation with parents – two months would be minimum

In time we’ve had, we’ve: had conversations at DPAC table, with

PAC representatives distilled concerns heard by Executive

Introduction

School fees – some parents feel nickled and dimed to death School supplies Field trips Cultural trips School pictures Extra supplies This and that and something else

Do want policies followed for access to field trips for our vulnerable parents and students

Don’t want PACs to be just engines for fundraising

Some preliminary concerns

Buildings and facilities crossing guards sidewalks design of parking lots classrooms and desks cleaned regularly paths cleared of snow and ice recess and lunch supervision – going from daycare to

school levels can be difficult to understand Interpersonal safety

behaviour programs anti-bullying counseling

We want our children to be safe at school

schools in our neighborhoods ability to get child to school lots of notice for date/time changes – respect

my schedule regular school schedule – not frequent early

dismissals If professional development / collaboration /

report card writing is important, do not fund it on backs of parents

And please don’t respond to these concerns with “we aren’t a daycare facility”

Don’t want schools to make our lives more difficult – parents want:

we hear "smaller class size" quite a lot - what does this actually mean? Is it a class size of X for grade Y, or should it be

adjusted based on individual students within the class? Why are average class sizes for grades 4-7 greater

than in high school? Most parental concern heard is around intermediate

class sizes – district average 26.5 vs. provincial average 25.4, grades 8-12 average 23.3

Is “class size” an appropriate metric? How does it change with 21st century / personalized learning, and other changes?

Class size

What can we substitute for IEP?  Workload rating per student? Modifications required,

annoying parents? Supportive of working things so that there isn’t

that labeling required in order to receive support Avoid burning out district employees in the process

One question that seems to be brought up by parents is around educational assistants, and how they can best be used in and out of classrooms Costs, placement, working collaboratively with teachers

– how does it all work?

Class composition

Have heard parent frustrations over having to wait for formal evaluations don’t wait for a diagnosis before intensive

support – we recognize that is difficult Support for parents through this process

some parents are intimidated, or feel they don’t get heard, or are in total denial

What other options do we have when funding doesn’t keep up with current methods of dealing with students with specific needs?

Special Needs

All our children should have access to these:  Librarians / learning commons facilitators Resource Teachers Art Music Drama Technical education

How can this work with all our schools?

Support

One of most important issues is the quality of the teaching that our children receive

Dollars spent on evaluating teachers - as long as there is a result to this evaluation - is being spent to the benefit of students

Effective professional development is to the benefit of students

What are appropriate metrics? There is a cost to evaluation and

development – and huge benefits

Teaching

How are resources aligned to need across the district?  There does need to be a genuine and respectful

conversation about how choice in school and programs may impact equitable access to resources

In looking at class size numbers in various schools, we see that classes in the primary project (tier 1) schools are built considerably smaller than in other schools, showing more funding going to these schools We fully agree that our vulnerable students need to be

supported How is this balanced against needs of vulnerable students in

other schools? If it is better for vulnerable students to have smaller class sizes,

how can this be best handled equitably across the district?

Equity

Some common parent comments: How can bussing work with choice

programs? Example - during original Aboriginal choice

school discussions, transportation was identified as a major financial concern

How can courtesy bussing work – is there an option to have some paid bussing?

Some of this may fall into that discussion on equity within the district

Transportation

Concerns expressed over how we may be failing our secondary school students who require distributed learning in order to meet their goals

In various secondary schools, we have seen minimum class sizes not met, leading students to distributed learning classes

these distributed learning classes do not have the same achievement level as the rest of the district

It is time to invest in this, especially as we continue to see secondary school populations declining over the next number of years

Distributed Learning

We need to be smart about this, and we can’t have everything – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything

Communications with parents – technology to assist in this is severely lacking

SD57 web technology lacking

Technology

Our children need capable and loving adults surrounding them to help guide them into their future

Money helps, but people are pivotal

Summary