Though they appreciate Delta isn’t facing widespread cuts seen in neighbouring districts, the unions representing teachers and support workers in Delta want to see more money dedicated to positions that help both students and staff get the most out of their time at school.
On Tuesday (April 22), school board trustees heard partner and public feedback on the proposed budget for the 2025/26 school year. The district is forecasting a $180,000 shortfall, representing about 0.1 per cent of next year’s budgeted operating expenses, due in large part to wage and benefit increases not funded by the province, unavoidable inflationary increases and other non-salary related cost pressures, illness cost increases and a decrease in investment income caused by lower interest rates.
The draft budget proposes a set of “strategic balancing initiatives,” containing both budgetary savings and additional costs, to handle the shortfall without a loss of jobs.
Speaking at Tuesday night’s board meeting, Daun Frederickson, president of CUPE 1091, acknowledged the immense amount of work that has gone into the draft budget, highlighting the relatively small shortfall as compared to neighbouring districts with millions in expenditures to balance out.
But Frederickson also told trustees she was disappointed not to see funds allocated for more educational assistants (EAs) despite repeated requests from her union, teachers, parents, and the district’s Inclusive Learning department.
Frederickson said the department will actually see a decrease in the number of EAs as retiring or resigning staff will not be replaced.
“We were looking to the board for a reallocation of funds prioritizing students’ needs by putting more EAs in jobs,” Frederickson said.
“What I do know, there was an increase in [Child and Youth Care Worker] hours, for 30 hours in every elementary [school], and we know there is a need, but we’re not seeing an increase in injuries to CYCWs from students, compared to EAs. There’s a significant increase in injuries [to EAs] that is costing the board through WorkSafe file claims.”
Quoting another CUPE member, Frederickson said students’ behavioural challenges come from not having their needs met, and these behaviours will continue to escalate if their needs continue to go unmet.
“This means that their education needs are not being met. I and this union are not asking for the EAs to have more jobs, we are asking that this board support student needs by providing EAs,” she said. “It’s as simple as that. And when I’m seeing in reserve [spending] $2.6 million towards technology, it’s disappointing.”
Frederickson said her union will continue to push the province to honour its promises to make students with diverse needs a priority and provide more funding to districts for student allocations, “but I wish the district was doing more.”
Delta Teachers’ Association president Alison Kerr echoed Frederickson’s calls for more funding from the ministry, saying a fully-funded public education system can raise people out of ignorance and teach them the value of critical thinking — a valuable skill in an era where many politicians employ “emotional reasoning … that relies on fear, anger, resentment, creating echo chambers or misleading and over-simplified narratives.”
“And yet here in B.C., even with a New Democrat provincial government, we continue to see students denied — the lack of resources, long wait lists for maintenance and repairs, staffing shortages of CUPE workers, classroom and specialist teachers, all because government fails to realise the benefits of fully funding public education.
“School districts are forced to make do with less, and Delta is no different. There is never not a shortfall, and the district then tries to find ways to make up the difference.”
And while Kerr also said she appreciated the work that has gone into making sure Delta isn’t facing massive shortfalls seen in other districts, she said the DTA still feels the district
“has been shortsighted in the way it continues to underemploy” the teacher support program, formerly known as mentorship and peer support.
“Due to the teacher shortage in B.C., many teachers are now hired from outside the province or the country. Although they may be skilled teachers, they don’t understand the curriculum, accepted teaching methods, best practices, or the culture of public education in British Columbia. This can result in less-than-satisfactory evaluations, investigations and, in the very least, increased pressures on the systems and people already in place, such as HR,” Kerr said.
“This also creates, as we’ve seen, increased medical costs for the board. Every year, the peer support program supports the recruitment of new teachers to Delta. It also helps with retention. As many teachers have stated, they avoided a medical leave due to the support of our peer support workers.”
Kerr said that although the union appreciates the decision to pay for peer support as part of the district’s regular operating budget rather than out of reserves as it ensures job security, “it does not alleviate the issues.”
“Peer support had to create a waitlist starting in October of this year due to [past] cuts. The proactive work of general early teacher support quickly falls to the wayside when the new teacher, probably put into a vacant position, is floundering hard and parents are knocking on the door of the administrator’s office. Working reactively day after day also disheartens and burns out the co-ordinators working in these rolls. You cannot always be working with emergencies.”
The DTA wants specific teachers hired for teacher support, noting Learning Services co-ordinators tasked with taking on some of the per support work come with a different approach and skill set than what is required, and are already working at capacity in their original roles.
“They could not imagine one thing that could come off their plate in order to accommodate peer support work.”
The union “strongly urges” the board to rethink its position and return to funding 2.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) teacher support positions, noting that, at a minimum, at least four FTE positions would be better for the co-ordinators doing “this difficult work.”
The DTA also wants to see the return of elementary librarian administrative time, increasing combined admin and prep time up to 30 per cent with 70 per cent left for teaching.
“Twenty per cent of a week that includes prep time is not enough time for a professional librarian to create the safe, active learning space they wish to provide.”
Noting libraries are the “community hub” of schools, Kerr said the district’s “choice of turning librarians into prep coverage teachers to save costs leaves them little time to create that culture of a warm, inviting space or to work side-by-side with teachers, often mentoring new teachers as they did in the past.”
“They still often keep the library open outside of instructional time — in the mornings, lunch and after school — to provide safe spaces for students. Choosing grade-appropriate books and cultivating an atmosphere for critical thinking is difficult with ever-increasing cuts to the time that allows for this work. For a district that says it values literacy, it has traded in a robust library program for standardized testing and data gathering.”
Trustees will discuss and vote on the proposed budget on Tuesday, April 29. That meeting will take place at the school district’s head office (4585 Harvest Dr. in Ladner), beginning at 7:30 p.m.
