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FridAy
april 11 2014 www.burnabynewsleader.com
STM top local school in rankings Wanda Chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
MariO BarTEl/NEWSlEaDEr
A visitor to Burnaby’s Central park can’t resist stopping to smell the cherry blossoms on wednesday.
How to carve $3.1m from school budget? Seeks feedback on proposed options
utilities (eight per cent), natural gas and reorganization come in. (15 per cent) and water, sewer and Burnaby has total surpluses garbage services (five per cent). of $3 million which it will put And as teachers’ years of towards the shortfall, leaving $3.1 experience and levels of million to make up through qualifications increase each adjustments. year, so do their salaries, a Frank stressed that the total cost to the district of district has come up with $750,000 a year, Frank said. options worth more than Meanwhile, the education that. FraNk ministry has provided no From there, the school more funding through its board will be choosing what operating grants to make up for it cuts to make. “No decisions have all. been made.” That’s where the potential cuts The largest potential cut would
Wanda Chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
Burnaby school district is seeking public feedback on its plans to deal with another shortfall caused by provincial funding not keeping up with costs. Maintaining the status quo would leave the district $6.1 million in the red, said district secretary-treasurer Greg Frank. That’s due to inflation in costs including staff benefits,
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be by slightly increasing class sizes in high schools by 0.5 full-timeequivalent (FTE) students per class. That would save $1.5 million by cutting 16 FTE teaching positions, but largely in blocks of teaching time spread amongst numerous teachers. Non-enrolling teachers at elementary schools, such as music teachers and teacher-librarians, is being considered as a source of $800,000 in savings by reducing such positions by 8.8 FTEs. please see DiSTriCT SEEkS, a4 Open Saturdays by appointment
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The independent St. Thomas More Collegiate (STM) was the top Burnaby school in this year’s Fraser Institute rankings of secondary schools. For the second year in a row, the Catholic school placed 21st overall out of 293 schools across B.C. with a score of 8.5 out of 10. The top 20 in the province, led by Vancouver’s York House and Crofton House which were tied for first, and Southridge in Surrey at third place, were all private schools. As for Burnaby public high schools, Moscrop was tops with a score of 6.7 and overall ranking of 95th. It came in second spot behind STM among Burnaby schools. Next up among local schools was Burnaby Mountain in third (102nd overall) on a score of 6.6, and the independent Carver Christian in fourth (106th) with a 6.5 score. Burnaby North was next (114th, 6.4) and Burnaby Central was sixth (140th, 6.1). Seventh place finisher was Deer Lake Seventh Day Adventist school (175th, 5.6) which last year was 213th. please see raNkiNgS, a3