Education Minister Makes Good On $20M Promise

Thursday, December 08, 2005 03:00 AM

Student bikes in front of Westwood Elementary during teacher's strike

Shirley Bond has announced $20-million dollars to reduce class sizes around the province. From that amount, School District 57 will receive $544,645.00 based on this fall's student enrolment.

The funding is making good on a recommendation made by industrial inquiry commissioner, Vince Ready, in his report that facilitated an end to the teacher's dispute in October.

Just last week, BC Teachers Federation President Jinny Sims had threatened to walk away from the Learning Roundtable, accusing the government of dragging its feet in implementing the Ready report.

Education Minister Bond says, "Districts will be using this funding to improve class size and composition, and we will require them to report on how the funding is spent." The Prince George-Mount Robson MLA says she expects some districts will use the funding to hire more teachers.

School District 57 will have to come up with a plan for the cash quickly -- the deadline for submitting a spending outline to the Ministry is December 16th.

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Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 03:00 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: camoose on December 8 2005 11:06 AM

I would like to point out that Ms. Bond and her band of bandits wouldn't have given the money to reduce class size if they hadn't saved it in teacher's wages during the strike. Therefore I would like to thank the teachers for their donation to reduce class sizes. I'm sure if there hadn't been a strike that the government wouldn't have donated money to reduce class sizes. More likely it would go to a pension plan and wage increase for those Civil? Servants in Victoria that we call MLAs