Amalgamation of region’s English public school boards causes confusion during election
By Lisa Marchitto
There has never been a more confusing time to hold elections for school board members.
School boards are amalgamating, big budget cuts are expected, and candidates are receiving little guidance from the provincial government.
“One of the. . . large problems we’re facing is that there are no clear definitions of a large number of things,” says Albert Chambers, one of the two candidates in Zone 10 of public school board 25. “A great deal of information is missing, and that makes if difficult to provide answers to the questions of electors.”
Chambers says the main issue for voters is how funding will change with amalgamation.
The amalgamation will decrease the region’s boards to four — an English language public board, an English language separate board, a French language public board, and a French language separate board — instead of the present six.
The provincial government has estimated budget cuts of $30 to $50 million for the new public school board, which will be made up of the Ottawa Board of Education (OBE) and the Carleton Board of Education (CBE).
Since there are major differences between the two boards, voters question how compromises can be made.
The OBE, for example, has junior kindergarten, offers three entrance points for French immersion and has resource-rich programs for disabled and gifted students. The CBE does not have French immersion and offers two entrance points for French immersion.
Candidates say they can’t answer voters’ questions about which programs will sta y and which will be ousted because they don’t know how great the total amount of cuts will be, or how funding will be distributed.
“I think there is a worry that the Ottawa (public) board has a bit more to lose,” says Anthony Galveisas, Chambers’s opponent. “It’s going to be an interesting balancing act.”
Pam Morse, who is running for Zone 7, agrees.
“The adjustment for Carleton board students will be less than the adjustment for children on the Ottawa board,” says the former Gloucester trustee.
Morse points out that the CBE has already endured cuts of more than $57 million in the past five years. “We’ve done a lot of reviewing of our programs and have become cost efficient, learning to do well with less,” she says.
The big question for the OBE and the CBE concerns how services will be carried out in the new board. Will it take a “cookie-cutter” approach to funding, where the same programs and services will be available everywhere? Or will programs and services vary depending on where the need arises?
Chambers says the cookie-cutter approach is impractical.
“There’s a difference between what (programs and services) you offer at a (smaller) school in a downtown area and (what you offer) in schools with 700 or 800 kids,” he says.
Insiders say they don’t think there will be a lot of choice regarding which areas the cuts will come from.
If Bill 160 goes through, school boards will no longer be able to levy taxes. Funding will be centralized and then redistributed by the provincial government.
“All we’ve heard (from the government) is speculation, but what we believe is that there will be funding by envelope,” says Linda Hunter, co-chair of the local education improvement committee.
That means the boards will no longer be able to decide how they’ll break down their budget spending. Instead of being given a lump sum of money where they can budget how they choose, funding will be allocated for such things as transportation or special programs.
Any changes that come with amalgamation will not be visible until the 1998-99 school year.
For now, there is speculation everywhere. The boards don’t know exactly how many millions of dollars the final amount of cuts will be, and the government isn’t telling them.