Public school board okays budgets...

Public school board okays budgets...

TIM WHITNELL Special to The IFP The Halton District School Board passed its operating and capital budgets for 2006-07 with relative ease Monday. Eight of the 11 school board trustees were present for the special meeting and unanimously accepted board staff's recommendation of a $359.4 million operating budget and $21.4 million capital projects budget for a total budget for the next school year of $380.8 million, a $22.1-million-increase over the 2005-06 total budget. Notable in the 2006-07 budget is the board agreed to dip into its special education reserve fund for $1.12 million to meet upcoming program requirements for special needs students. In addition, the board also used its remaining capital reserve fund of $1.54 million in order to balance the capital portion of the budget. As well, a debt of $2 million in operating the Centre For Skills Development and Training and the Halton Learning Foundation-- board-operated career workforce/training and school program fundraising groups respectively-- is expected to be managed through five payments of $400,000 annually. The board approved the first repayment in the new budget. Trustees also gave approval to a report from the board of directors of the Halton Learning Foundation. It called for forgiveness of its current debt and attaining the goal of moving from a 1:1 ratio of attracting fundraising dollars to HLF costs to at least a 3:1 ratio in the near future. Other issues of interest trustees wanted clarification on before voting on the budget included the costs to the board of vandalism and the reason for adding learning coaches to schools. A total of $1.1 million was in the `05-06 budget to cover vandalism to school property; the same amount was budgeted for 2006-07. Another budget item that caught the eye of trustees was the addition of $350,000 for five learning coaches. The individuals will work in schools with teachers to provide on-site professional development and mentoring programs. Education Director Wayne Joudrie told trustees the learning coaches would be at the elementary level and concentrate on helping high-needs pupils, such as those who are achieving below Level 3, the provincial standard, on Ontario-wide reading, writing and math tests. ··· Joudrie announced that the Ministry of Education had given approval to Ontario's school boards to add two Professional Activity Days to the 2006-07 school year calendar. The additional PA Days for elementary and secondary teachers gives school boards six. The extra dates will be Friday, Nov. 3, and Friday, April 27, 2007. The other dates are Oct. 6, Dec. 8, Feb. 2 and June 29.