The committee met at 2:01 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Good afternoon. My name is Bob D’Eith. I’m the MLA for Maple Ridge–Mission and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from the government and opposition parties.

I acknowledge that I’m joining this meeting from the traditional territories of the Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations.

I’d like to welcome everyone listening to and participating in this virtual public hearing of the Budget 2021 consultation. Of course, the committee typically travels around British Columbia to communities to hear from British Columbians about their priorities for the next provincial budget, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all public hearings are being held virtually this year.

Our consultations are based upon the Minister of Finance’s budget consultation paper that was released to the public on June 1.

We invite all British Columbians to participate by making a written submission or by filling out an online survey. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The consultation closes at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 26, 2020.

The committee will carefully consider all input and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be in Budget 2021, and the committee intends to release its report sometime in August.

In terms of meeting format, the presenters have been organized into small panels based on theme, and this afternoon we’ll be discussing K-to-12 education. Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation. Following the presentations from all panellists, there will be time for questions from the members.

Today’s meeting is being recorded and transcribed. All audio from the meetings is being broadcast live via our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted.

Now I’d like to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, and we’ll start today with Rich.

Please go ahead.

R. Coleman: Hi. I’m Rich Coleman. I’m the MLA for Langley East.

I am in the Kwantlen territory.

R. Leonard: Hello. I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the MLA for Courtenay-Comox and Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors. I say that because today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. I’m wearing purple. I encourage people to throw on some purple today.

D. Barnett: I’m Donna Barnett, and I’m the MLA for the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

I’m on the territory of the Secwépemc people.

M. Dean: Hi. I’m Mitzi Dean. I’m the MLA for Esqui­malt-Metchosin.

I am speaking to you from the traditional territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt and Scia’new Nations.

[2:05 p.m.]

D. Clovechok (Deputy Chair): Welcome, everybody. I’m Doug Clovechok. I’m the MLA for Columbia River–​Revelstoke.

Today I’m on the shared traditional territories of the Shuswap Indian Band and the Ktunaxa First Nation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We also have Nicholas Simons on.

N. Simons: It’s Nicholas Simons, and I’m proud to represent the Powell River–Sunshine Coast, the territory of the shíshálh and Tla’amin, Homalco, Klahoose and other First Nations.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you so much, Nicholas.

Also assisting us today are Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services.

Let’s get started.

First up we have Chris Johns from school district 5, Southeast Kootenay.

Please go ahead, Chris.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 1 – K-12 Education

SCHOOL DISTRICT 5,
SOUTHEAST KOOTENAY

C. Johns: Thank you, Chair, and select standing committee. It’s a pleasure to once again do a presentation before your services.

I’m on the Ktunaxa people’s land in East Kootenay.

Our presentation today is…. Basically, I want to start off with a summary because I know that five minutes rolls by real quick.

We desperately need a new middle school in Fernie. That’s the first theme. Second theme is that we need some substantive, major renovations for Mount Baker Secondary, the largest secondary school in both the East and West Kootenay. And third theme is we need increased special education funding to meet all student needs across our district.

With respect to the first theme, École Isabella Dicken Elementary School is the sole public elementary school in Fernie, and it’s experiencing significant enrolment pressure. We’re currently in the project development report stage to replace portables through an expansion, and we’d like to thank the Ministry of Education for their support of this PDR. We’re predicted in Fernie to be increasing to something like 626 students by 2020, and for an elementary school, that’s just not tenable.

Given the existing site constraints and projected growth in enrolment, we are requesting to prioritize…. A new middle school is definitely required. We have developed, with the ministry, a suitable location, and we’re working to secure that site.

The fourth paragraph in our presentation provides the context to the enrolment pressure. Currently — to give you another perspective on our second-to-last paragraph — we’ve got seven portables already at Isabella Dicken, with an eighth and ninth portable to be installed later this year — that is, for the forthcoming school year. We’re asking, based on the needs of the community, that the ministry prioritize the middle school in order to accommodate and commence the construction immediately because of the time that it takes in order to actually build a middle school. That’s the first part of our presentation.

The second part is with respect to Mount Baker Secondary, the largest secondary school in the East and West Kootenay. It’s 70 years old. It’s well past its best-before date. We’ve been spending money, millions of dollars, into the school enhancement plan, carbon-neutral programs, the capital bylaws, the annual facility grant. We’ve been using those moneys, taking that away from other buildings in our communities to make sure that this building is still suitable.

We’re seeking major renovations. We’re suggesting that the replacement of a school the size of Mount Baker would be somewhere between $60 million and $70 million. A major renovation would be somewhere around $20 million to $30 million. Concerning other facilities we have, we’re taking money away from those facilities in order to continue putting money into Mount Baker. So we’re asking that with the nature of the building itself, we look at a prudent financial decision to provide equal opportunities for the learning throughout B.C.

We’re also requesting $400,000 in emergency repairs to Mount Baker’s drama and music spaces, and we’ve included previous letters in which we have asked for that consideration. So major renovation for Mount Baker is what we see as being the prudent and practical and best option going forward.

Lastly, the section that deals with special education funding. It’s not news to anybody that the nature of learners now, the complexity of them and the needs that we are facing each year…. We’ve outlined a couple of things there that need to be addressed.

[2:10 p.m.]

Some students require up to four times the amount of support funding to educate — to provide a basic education. This school year the ministry-targeted funding provided 13.6 percent of our district budget, which is about $8.4, to meet these needs. So we had to come out and come up with that much money in order to facilitate those needs.

In the same academic year, we took out $4 million from our basic allocation in order to supplement the special education. We’re looking, going forward…. For next year, we’re looking at $7.7 million, 12.1 percent, that will be provided by the ministry. But we still have to bring in over $4 million from our district budget to provide the funding that’s needed for the students with special needs.

So we’re asking that the Ministry of Education increase the amount of funding provided for special education in the province.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Chris.

Next up we have Maggie Milne Martens from AIRS program.

AIRS PROGRAM

M. Milne Martens: Hi. Good morning. I am joining you from the unceded territory of the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Excuse me. We’re actually getting a lot of distortion when you’re speaking.

M. Milne Martens: Is that better?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. Thanks, Maggie.

M. Milne Martens: My name is Maggie Milne Martens. I am a parent, an artist, an art educator and also a PhD student in the faculty of education at SFU. This is the fifth year I have presented to the select standing committee — in previous years on behalf of PAN, the Parent Advocacy Network for Public Education.

This year I am still speaking about public education but not as a parent — as the director of AIRS, which is an innovative, artist-in-residence studio program developed in partnership with the Vancouver school board that seeks to reclaim space for the arts in public elementary schools and provide access to authentic art education through long-term artist residencies.

This program is a strategic and critical intervention that reimagines how the arts can be restored in public schools. My comments today are informed by research and decades of experience. I’m going to be showing you images — because I don’t have any other way of doing this — and they all are taken from the AIRS program.

The arts within education are more relevant than ever — and yes, especially in the middle of a pandemic. While children have been physically impacted by COVID-19, they have experienced unprecedented degrees of social disruption through physical distancing, isolation and ambient fear. Prolonged physical distancing in schools will have profound and long-lasting psychological impacts on a generation of children.

This is particularly true for elementary school children, who are at a critical stage in social development. Leading child psychiatrists are calling to provinces to attend to the emotional well-being of students. What this means is that children need tangible ways to access and process their feelings — sadness, loss and fear — in order to build resilience in the face of situations they cannot change. Experts in the field point to the arts as best suited for emotional processing because they are safe, non-verbal and implicit forms of expression.

The problem is that public elementary schools, from K to 7, do not have the funding resources nor the expertise to teach the arts. While some elementary schools have retained music specialists, the visual and performing arts have all but disappeared through the loss of specialist teachers and dedicated space. Art education is now reliant on volunteerism and fundraising.

Participation in the arts is not extra. It is one of the rights of the child. It is necessary for mental well-being but also for creativity, for critical thinking and for visual communication essential to the 21st-century workforce.

[2:15 p.m.]

The arts are also a fundamental form of human expression — a way of seeing, feeling, thinking, communicating and making the world that is directed towards human connection and empathy. For this reason, the United Nations has called on a mandate for arts education in schools for the promotion of peace, cultural diversity and intercultural understanding.

Education is a mind-altering device. The capacities that we choose to develop or delimit in students will determine the opportunities that will direct their lives. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a generation of Black Americans to stand up for racial equality and justice by the words “I have a dream” — not a plan, not a strategy but a dream.

Without the arts, we wither the imagination of children and limit their capacity to hope, to dream and to live into the renewal of the world. Education in the arts is not expendable. It is essential for the well-being of our students and for our future society.

There are creative solutions for restoring access to the arts. The AIRS program is just one of them. But it is not sustainable, and it cannot be done without dedicated public funds.

I call on the government of B.C. to implement the following recommendations: to provide one-time supplemental COVID funding to support school districts in social, emotional well-being, which includes access to the arts as an integral component of mental being; the longer-term goal to acknowledge the arts as essential to the goals of the B.C. curriculum; to create dedicated and protected funding and accountability frameworks that enable districts to develop a vision and mandate for equitable access to the arts; and the autonomy to draw on existing strengths and address gaps through locally-developed partnerships and initiatives.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Next up we have Samantha Gambling from the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food.

Please go ahead, Samantha.

COALITION FOR HEALTHY SCHOOL FOOD,
B.C. CHAPTER

S. Gambling: Thank you for inviting me to present today. My name is Samantha Gambling. I’m here representing the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, which is administered by the Public Health Association of B.C.

I’m calling in today from the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to recommend to this committee that the B.C. government make the first steps to invest in a universal, cost-shared, healthy school food program for all K-to-12 students in the province.

The Coalition for Healthy School Food is a national network of 125 organizations that are advocating for public investment in a healthy school food program that meets guiding principles based on best practices, such as universality, connection to curriculum and community and flexibility to local conditions.

Our 40 member and endorser organizations in B.C. include school boards, municipalities, non-profits and other community organizations from health, education and agriculture sectors, many of which work with schools to deliver or support breakfast, lunch, snack or other nutrition or food literacy programs, and all of which share the belief that children and youth should have daily access to healthy food at school.

As a bit of background, studies show that in B.C. and across Canada, children and youth consume insufficient and unhealthy diets with low fruit and vegetable consumption. This negatively impacts a child’s physical and mental health, as well as academic performance with long-term public health implications.

Around the world, universal school food programs that achieve food literacy and healthy eating behaviours from a young age are recognized as a valuable health promotion policy.

Combined with poverty reduction strategies, school food programs can alleviate the burden of food insecurity felt by families. They are an essential, irreplaceable food source and a valued part of the school day. This is particularly evident in the midst of COVID-19 as families and organizations struggle to ensure that students continue to access food that they once had at school.

Today Canada remains the only G7 nation without a national school food program and is ranked 37th in 41 high-income countries in providing nutritious food to children.

[2:20 p.m.]

However, this doesn’t mean that school food programs don’t exist. On the contrary, in B.C., 75 percent of school districts have a meal program in at least one school. These school food programs are generally run at a school or school district scale, and they rely on parents, non-profits or other school community members to develop and run.

While there is some provincial guidance and funding for school food, such as through CommunityLINK, 81 percent of these school food programs rely on additional charitable funds. Ultimately, the current patchwork of school food programming reaches only a small percentage of B.C. students and does not meet the needs of hungry and undernourished students. The coalition believes this cannot be improved without significant investment from federal and provincial bodies.

As you may know, the 2019 federal budget included a commitment to work with provinces and territories towards the creation of a national school food program. In B.C., there is a growing movement for school food and many examples of innovative and successful programs in all corners of the province.

As B.C. plans for recovery, we recommend that the provincial government build off this momentum and advance health and economic policy priorities by committing funds to the development of a universal healthy school food program. In addition to addressing immediate food needs and promoting long-term positive health outcomes in children and youth, school food programs could be used to stimulate and support local food economies.

Specifically, we have three recommendations. We ask that the B.C. government first work with the Coalition for Healthy School Food, its members and other stakeholders to design, fund and implement six new universal healthy school food pilot projects across the province that meet the coalition’s guiding principles; second, create a dedicated provincial school food fund to grant school districts, schools and community partners money for infrastructure, equipment, staff and other expenses essential to the continuation, expansion and enrichment of existing school food programs across B.C.; and third, assemble a multi-stakeholder provincial school food task force to support the development of cost-shared, healthy school food programs provincewide, eventually serving all K-to-12 students in B.C.

Later this week, I will be submitting a written letter through the online consultation platform with further details on these three recommendations. So for now, on behalf of PHABC and the Coalition for Healthy School Food, I want to thank you for considering our recommendations to invest in school food for the immediate and long-term health and well-being of B.C.’s students, families and school food communities.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Sam.

All right. Questions from members?

D. Clovechok (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentations. Who can argue with more arts and culture in our life and food on the table.

Chris, I just want to echo what you said. I know how desperately Cranbrook needs a bit of a refurb on the Mount Baker high school, so you have a lot of support in this MLA here. Thank you very much.

C. Johns: I appreciate that. I don’t know if that was a question, but I’ll take it.

D. Barnett: Thank you for your presentations. I have a question for Maggie.

Do you have any idea of the cost, the dollars that would be needed for a complete program?

M. Milne Martens: I can tell you the costs from our program. So right now, we have artists in 13 schools. And in order to do that, we are looking at about $160,000 to provide arts programming over the course of an entire year.

D. Barnett: For one school.

M. Milne Martens: No, for 13 — 13 underserved schools.

D. Barnett: Okay. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You’re absolutely right, Maggie. I come from the background of arts, and it’s often the arts that are the first things to get cut, you know. Certainly, physical arts or painting or the things that you’re talking about are so important to the well-being of our students. I totally appreciate what you’re saying.

[2:25 p.m.]

I think it’s a question of trying to make sure that the arts are appreciated for what they bring to schools.

I understand that it’s math and literacy and things — and they’re very, very important — and sciences. But that that creativity can get lost as well. The interesting thing is that when I did a project with Science World, nine out of ten of the scientists I worked with were also musicians. So there you go.

Sorry, that was more of a statement than just saying: “I agree. We need more arts in schools.” But thank you so much, Maggie. And I agree with Doug’s sentiment that obviously more schools, better schools, food in our schools for our children and arts are all…. You’re going to get a lot of support for those things. So thank you.

Any other members?

R. Leonard: Thank you, everyone, for your presentations. It’s a nice variety of interests being represented here.

A couple of questions. One around the healthy food program. Did I get it right that you’re still looking at a grant system, as opposed to having it entrenched within the school system for healthy food? Because I think you said something about grants. So that was the one question for you.

Another question was around the schools. I think we’ve been hearing it. This is our fourth year that we’re doing these public consultations. I think we’ve heard it pretty much every year. I know there’s a whole process around assessing school needs and whether you go to renovations or new construction. You mentioned that you were on the project development proposal stage for the middle school in Fernie.

I’m just wondering, coming to this particular forum, if it’s in conjunction with or separate from the ask and the process through the Ministry of Education. So there’s a couple of questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Why don’t we start with Sam. I think the first one was directed to you. Then we’ll go to Chris after that.

S. Gambling: I think, in the long run, ideally it would be entrenched in the education system through a specific funding stream. For the time being, there are so many programs right now that are so diverse in nature and often run by non-profits. And having a dedicated school food fund that they could use to enrich their existing programs is what I was referring to, but hopefully with the six pilot projects, that would be embedded within the system through the Ministry of Education, working with the B.C. government.

It’s a bit of both, to answer your question. I hope that does.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Go ahead, Chris.

C. Johns: Okay. So speaking to the Fernie situation, what we’re looking at is that we’ve already established some cooperation with ministry officials, and we’re moving through the usual processes. But what we’re stressing there is that we need the ministry to prioritize the middle school for Fernie, given those enrolment numbers that I alluded to in our presentation.

Now, as far as Mount Baker is concerned, we’ve been seeking replacement for that for ten years. And, yes, the previous presentations I’ve made were for a total replacement. But when you take a look at what the cost of a total replacement would be versus making major renovations, the preferred option is to look at doing the major renovations and keep that building. It’s a beautiful building. But like I’ve said before, it’s past its best-before date.

Just to touch on the emergency funding that we’re seeking again, it is to repair both the drama and the music rooms that are at Mount Baker. I mean, we’re all in support of the arts, for sure, and we’ve got a great band and music and drama program in Mount Baker that reaches out to the whole community. But we’re seeing that…. We’re working through the usual channels, but a chance to get before the standing committee and say: “Look, we need something more than this. We need your support for these major renovations.”

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Chris.

Okay, so I think that’s everyone. Everyone has had a chance.

Okay. Well, thank you very much for your presentations, all three of you. We appreciate your passion for education, for the arts, for keeping our children fed and well-housed. We appreciate that and wish you the best. And stay well. Stay safe. And we’ll be deliberating and have a report sometime in August for you. Thank you so much.

I’d like to take a recess until 2:50. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 2:30 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’d like to welcome everyone back to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Today we’re hearing presentations on K-to-12 education.

First up we have Kerri Palmer Isaak from school district 43, which is Coquitlam.

Kerri, please go ahead.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 2 – K-12 Education

SCHOOL DISTRICT 43, COQUITLAM

K. Palmer Isaak: Good afternoon, members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. My name is Kerri Palmer Isaak, like you said. I’m the chair of the board of education for school district 43, Coquitlam, B.C. This is the third-largest school district.

Today I’m speaking to you on behalf of our entire board of our school district and our partner groups: the Coquitlam Teachers Association, the Coquitlam Principals and Vice-Principals Association, CUPE Local 561 and the SD 43 parent advisory council.

We’ve organized our concerns into four main themes: funding for mental health supports, support for vulnerable students, capital funding and overall education system funding. Mental health support funding is our first priority.

Despite being identified as a number one priority for the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth in B.C.’s government, increased funding support for students struggling with anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges has not materialized. The downloading of health services to school districts has continued to increase without increases in funding, resulting in the redirection of funds.

Students facing mental health challenges are some of the most difficult to support, and we’re unable to meet the needs of those students within our current structure. School districts lack the expertise, training and resources to attend to these children with a systemic therapeutic approach. Additional funding is required to ensure that appropriate professional staffing resources are in place to support all children and teachers in addressing student vulnerability, mental health challenges and behavioural issues.

Despite the new equity of opportunity supplemental funding initiative, this simply replaced vulnerable student funding but with a [audio interrupted] mandate and a reduced funding level, exacerbating an already seriously underfunded requirement. One only need to look at the deaths from drug use recently reported to see the importance of escalating our response and support. How can we continue to ignore this need?

Supporting vulnerable students with CommunityLINK funding is important. CommunityLINK and the now new equity of opportunity funding are important for supporting vulnerable students. But significant underfunding, with an expanded mandate and allocation inequities, continue to raise concerns. Increasing the numbers of students that require help while the cost of providing support services rises as well results in a funding that has remained virtually unchanged in many years. We’ve failed to address the increasing costs, which threaten to decrease the levels of service to be provided to vulnerable students.

Funding for students with special needs is critical. While it’s clearly understood that students with special needs require additional support, the current funding formula is inadequate, and the result is a substantive redirection of funds to support robust programs and crucial early identifications.

We don’t need a new funding model. We need funds to support the expanding mandate of the educational system to support the growing requirements to our young people and to our communities. Our recommendation is that standards of appropriate support levels be established for students with special needs and that this standard be made transparent and fully funded without undermining the funding required to ensure the success of all students.

School districts need sustainable and equitable funding. Cost pressures continue to mount, and an approximate budget shortfall of $5 million for SD 43 has become the norm, increasing year after year. Funding increases to cover staff and collective agreement labour settlement costs have not materialized. Additionally, cost increases due to inflation affect all aspects of school operation with no provision to offset these expenses, thereby draining the education system of funds that would normally be used and directed to classrooms.

Overall, education underfunding is a chronic problem and increases to funding have simply fallen behind inflation. Capital funding for new school constructions, additions and seismic upgrades continues to be an urgent need. While we continue to be encouraged by new schools, seismic replacement, upgrade funding and the capital initiatives of this government and support continued growth in this area, the practice of requiring school districts to contribute funds to capital projects that would normally be destined to addressing student needs is at odds with the goals of an equitable education system.

[2:55 p.m.]

Best efforts by SD 43 to contribute necessary funds to those schools have resulted in an expected diversion of over $15 million from our operating fund to finance these…. This is in addition to the critical need to maintain, upgrade and seismically improve our existing facilities.

While we support funding equity, it must include the cost of required diversion of education funds to capital programs or capital funding to be enhanced to add more classroom space to our schools to make schools safer for students and offer better maintenance of existing facilities. This would ensure that funds provided through the funding formula are used for educational needs and not redirected to capital needs. An ultimate goal for every student is to receive an education in a safe and modern school.

In summary, a robust K-to-12 education system that is adequately and equitably funded contributes to the personal, social and economic success of students, their families and their communities, plus the school district it serves. In closing, we thank the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Kerri.

We have Ken Hamaguchi from school district No. 38, Richmond.

Please go ahead, Ken.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 38, RICHMOND

K. Hamaguchi: Dear committee members, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to participate in the Budget 2021 consultation. I understand you have a copy of our brief, so I’m not going to pain you by reading it back to you. I’ll just highlight the main points.

This brief is presented by the board of education of the Richmond school district in collaboration with our stakeholders, which are the Richmond District Parents Association, the Richmond Teachers Association, CUPE local 716, Richmond Association of School Administrators and the Richmond management and professional team.

We have four key recommendations.

One, increase funding to support vulnerable students. The K-to-12 education funding model review identified inclusive education and support of vulnerable student learners as an area that needed to be adequately funded. Without an appropriate level of funding, you cannot provide a program that meets their needs.

Recently the Ministry of Education introduced a new equity of opportunity supplement but eliminated the vulnerable student supplement with the 2020-2021 operating grant. This has led to an $846,000 decrease in the district’s vulnerable student funding, an area where the enrolment of our vulnerable students continues to grow.

To meet the needs of our vulnerable students, the Richmond district offers smaller class sizes and an increased staff-student ratio, well above the current ministry guidelines and funding. We provide support from a team of professionals who are specially trained to work with these students and provide one-to-one support in the classroom.

Supporting students with EAs has been a challenge because of the shortage of EAs, in trying to retain them. We’ve tried to be creative by creating our own Richmond education assistant training program — it’s called the REAP program — where we basically train individuals such that when they finish completion, we hire them. That has made a big difference, but the funding support is still required.

Recently the Ministry of Education has asked school districts to prioritize the support of vulnerable learners during the pandemic. We embraced this request, but you have to give us appropriate funding if we’re going to fulfil it.

Recommendation No. 2 is a fair and equitable funding formula. The K-to-12 funding model review came up with 22 recommendations, with the goal of creating a more fair and equitable funding formula. With the 2020-2021 operating grant announcement, there were several changes that resulted in negative impacts to Metro urban school districts.

Funding to offset the impact of the new employer health tax, which was being received in 2019-2020 separately from the operating grant, was effectively cut when the ministry included only a portion of this within the operating grant. With the introduction of the new equity of opportunity supplement, the ministry eliminated the vulnerable student supplement, as I mentioned earlier. As a result, the district lost $846,000.

[3:00 p.m.]

We understand the importance of funding everyone, but there obviously seems to be a shift from the urban funding over to the rural. We support that, but at the same time, too, funding for the urban centres can’t come at their expense.

Provincial funding for K to 12 accounts for 80 percent of our total school district. The other 12 percent comes from our international students, our facility rentals, investment income, etc. Due to the COVID pandemic, which has severely impacted those other sources of revenue, it is harder for us to make up for any shortcomings of short-term funding from the ministry.

Richmond supports a new funding allocation model that aims to provide funding that is responsive, equitable, stable, predictable, flexible, transparent and accountable. The district believes that the funding model should cover all costs of inflationary measures, all costs related to the negotiated collective agreement and exempt staff compensation increases, which are not currently funded.

Item 3: continued support and investment in seismically safe schools. Currently, 34 of our 48 schools have been deemed to be a high seismic risk. The Ministry of Education has established a Richmond project office. [Audio interrupted.] We’re very appreciative of that. But we still have 25 more schools to go requiring seismic upgrading. Additional funding to accelerate the time would be greatly appreciated, as we are talking about safety issues here.

Finally, recommendation No. 4 is to support the health and safety of our students and staff, to ensure the safety of our students and staff with all the COVID-19 pandemic issues going on, and the importance of cleaning and hand hygiene to reduce the transmission of viruses and diseases needed to keep our school environment safe.

Provincial funding is needed for costs related to en­hanced cleaning, staff supplies, hygiene, retrofitting of buses, other environmental measures and implementation of technologies to support remote learning.

When the world returns to a normal place, the question will be: where are we going to get the funding to continue all of the measures that we have in place right now? That is a great concern for our parents, for our staff and for our teachers, so the funding needs to continue.

In conclusion, we would like to thank the committee. Thank you for allowing us the chance to speak. Richmond is committed to ensuring that we continue to have a strong public education system and that the district is the best place to learn and lead. Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Ken.

Next up we have Jen Mezei from the board of education, school district 41, which is Burnaby.

Go ahead.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 41, BURNABY,
BOARD OF EDUCATION

J. Mezei: It’s an honour to join you today from the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh and Hul’q’umi’num’-speaking peoples.

I’m Jen Mezei, vice-chair of the Burnaby school district. The Burnaby school district has the fourth-largest student population in the province of B.C. and shares the same boundaries as the city of Burnaby. Serving over 24,000 K-to-12 students, the district operates a large and complex learning environment with a large continuing and community education program, federal LINC language instruction for newcomers to Canada programs and a significant international education program.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Burnaby school district estimates that the international education program will be reduced by 45 percent for the ’20-21 year and result in a reduction of approximately $10 million in school district revenue. Burnaby is one of the most culturally diverse school districts in Canada, with over 100 languages spoken by its students.

Today’s reality is very different than when we presented to this committee last year. Responding to the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us to utilize our infrastructure to assist in a systemic pandemic response but has also highlighted challenges of food security and access to technology for our students. The road to recovery will be long, and this will pose further unsustainable strain on our infrastructure, including financial and human resources.

The Burnaby school district submission focuses on new recommendations and previous submissions pertaining to equity of opportunity for students attending K-to-12 public schools in areas of food security, technology, supports for newcomers to Canada, mental health supports and inclusive education. Today I will be presenting on the recommendations pertaining to food security and access to technology.

[3:05 p.m.]

The Burnaby school district is uniquely structured, with a robust community school model and settlement workers in the school SWIS program. Burnaby’s SWIS program provides settlement support to all immigrant and refugee students and families and covers all 49 Burnaby schools. Program staff collectively speak 17 languages and have firsthand experience and extensive expertise in settlement counselling.

Despite the suspension of in-class instruction, community schools and settlement workers were able to assist in connecting families with district and community resources, including necessary technology and food security supports. Since April, the Burnaby school district has been providing close to 600 meals daily to students, over and above the support that community schools regularly provide to families facing food insecurity.

We estimate that the cost of continuing to provide these food security programs for the 2021 school year will be approximately $475,000. Although food security is not within the core mandate of public schools, the district does receive CommunityLINK funding and the new equity of opportunity supplement. One-third of the supplement is calculated based on the 2011 national household survey and the 2016 census. Unfortunately, neither of these measurements include data for most current newcomers to Canada in our schools. Currently 48 percent of families and students that arrive in Burnaby require support from our SWIS programs when arriving as refugees.

Our first recommendation is for the equity of opportunity supplement. It is recommended that the equity of opportunity supplement be revised so that newcomers to Canada be recognized and counted in the funding allocation.

Our second recommendation is on food security and COVID response funding. It is recommended that supplemental funding be provided to districts to offset costs of providing food security programs during COVID-19 and COVID-19 recovery.

Before COVID-19, the total cost of ownership for all technology costs was approaching $400 per student per year, which translates into an average annual cost of $9.4 million for our district.

The provision of technology is no longer optional for districts, and it is our experience that the current funding formula does not adequately fund these costs. Additional funding to provide technology in the classroom is needed and necessary to ensure that students are prepared, supported and engaged in this ever-changing world. In the transition to remote learning in April, the Burnaby district distributed 1,050 laptops from existing school inventory to individual students who would not otherwise have had access to the technology necessary for remote learning at home.

The Burnaby school district also connected families to programs to provide Internet connectivity, and district IT staff provided direct support to families. At this time, it is difficult to estimate how much of the distributed technology will be recoverable or useable for future classroom use. These additional technology costs will face districts continuing to balance supplying students with technology for equitable access to education and equipping class­rooms with up-to-date and adaptive tools to customize instruction and learning.

Our third recommendation on technology is that it’s recommended that increased funding be provided to school districts to sustain required technology to support stated curriculum outcomes and to ensure that school district administration operates effectively.

Our fourth recommendation is on the COVID-19 technology supplement. It is recommended that districts be provided supplemental funding for actual technology costs incurred to provide students with access to education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thank you for the opportunity to present to you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much to our presenters.

Questions from members?

Donna, please go ahead.

D. Barnett: Thank you for your presentations.

To Jen Mezei: the numbers you were talking about for food security, to me, are a little shocking. Most of this is for the refugee program, is it? Why is the federal government not sending funds directly to these types of people?

J. Mezei: Actually, our food security programs are for all of our vulnerable families. Our community school coordinators and our SWIS workers all reached out — and also our principals — to families to see who required food support. We are providing meals to 600 families because, this year, we were able to utilize the food that we actually had in stock to be able to provide meals to families.

Next year we don’t have that luxury of resources left in our fridges and freezers that have to be used up. Next year, if we need to continue these food security programs for our vulnerable families, we’ll be having to purchase food.

D. Barnett: Thank you. How many refugees do you have a year?

[3:10 p.m.]

J. Mezei: I believe it’s about 1,500. We have 1,500 students….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much.

I had a question. One of the things that the committee is looking at are the impacts of COVID-19 and the pandemic on all stakeholders. And, of course, K-to-12 education is no different.

I did notice in all of the presentations that there is a discussion about the impact. I’m just wondering. Is there any indication as to budgetary…? The quantum of how much is going to be needed or whether or not this is one-time funding that’s…. Just maybe a little bit more detail. If you had that detail, we’d appreciate receiving that after the fact, if it’s too difficult to put together now.

As I said, one of the things we are looking at are the general needs. Seismic upgrades, school food programs — all of those sorts of things. But we’re also looking at COVID-19.

Would any of you like to comment on that? Jen, and then Kerri.

J. Mezei: When I spoke about the 1,050 computers, we did do an assessment of how much that would cost to replace, if they aren’t recoverable. And the cost of a computer, by the time you add the hardware, the licensed software and…. It was over $800, so we are looking at almost $850,000, just for our district.

The food security, we really are considering it’s going to be a long recovery. We really do worry that families are going to need support for longer than. It’s going to be different going back, then, to schools and to what it was beforehand.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Kerri and then Ken.

K. Palmer Isaak: If I could just make another comment that we hadn’t actually touched on yet. I think that it was actually too soon to know. We really have no way of knowing what the costs will be at this point in time. We had the exact same technology costs. We have a very robust food program, same. One of the things that we hadn’t factored into, of course — a good example — is benefit costs.

We are actually overbudgeted in benefit costs right now, because no one is able to go to the dentist. No one is able to go to the physiotherapist, so all of our benefits actually have contributed to this very small surplus fund. I think a lot of districts are experiencing that. Those are all earmarked and going to be wiped out in the next few months, if we return to normal. Then I think we’re actually going to start to see where we have spaces where we’ve had incredible cost overruns and incredible expenses.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Go ahead, Ken.

K. Hamaguchi: For next year, for our COVID costs — I mean, obviously we won’t know for sure until the time comes — we’ve actually budgeted $2 million, with at least $1.5 million being for cleaning and custodial services. So in terms of what are we looking at, that’s what we’re projecting at this time for our district.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much.

R. Leonard: Thank you, everyone, for your presentations.

I have a couple of questions. One of them is around the technology and the laptops going home to students. Have you talked with the libraries that have lending programs, for Kindles or whatever, just to see what the return rate is and the kind of damage?

Second question, related to that, is what kind of challenges are there in the home with the Internet connection? It’s one thing to have a laptop, and it’s quite another to be able to actually connect. And what percentage of your students are having to come to the schools to pick up paper?

The third question was around food security. I know that, at least in my community, the response of the schools has been more than just feeding students in breakfast or lunch programs. It’s been about feeding families. I’m just wondering what you’re doing in terms of working with community groups to be able to branch out into something quite a lot bigger.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Kerri, go ahead.

K. Palmer Isaak: Sure, I’ll tackle your last one first. We’ve had some great community partnerships, especially with Save-On-Foods. I think a lot of school districts have had to reach out to their community partners, and they were one of our larger contributors.

[3:15 p.m.]

You’re right. We’re actually delivering bags of food or having family-style bags of food collected from our few distribution centres within a district. It’s well beyond what we’ve expected, and we do expect to continue it going forward.

We’re funding out of operating now. Our Community­LINK funding doesn’t begin to even touch the amount of the funds that we’re putting into that program. But we have also used our teaching kitchens, which is kind of a good news story. Our teaching kitchens have also been supplying premade meals and then also providing that same service.

I will go back to your first one, which is around Wi-Fi and Internet service provision. We did have to look at service providers and develop some partnerships with Shaw and a couple of other providers in order to reach families. That’s been very, very challenging.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Jen, did you want to comment on that?

J. Mezei: Yeah. I think when it came to the Internet and connection, we actually, very early on, managed to work with Telus to secure 500 certificates for families so that they could connect to the Internet for free. That was very, very helpful for a lot of our families.

What we did, also, is have our IT staff provide a direct support to those families to help them connect, because a lot of the families that we were supporting had never had a laptop before. They didn’t know how to turn it on. They didn’t know how to access or use email. They may have known how to use a phone, but they did not know how to use an actual laptop.

When it comes to feeding families, the 600 meals are just for the students. Our community schools are still continuing to provide support to families. We’re very lucky in Burnaby that we have a Burnaby corona task force, and we have a lot of our community agencies, as well as the libraries and the city and the school district. Our community coordinators sit on there to help coordinate community resources when it comes to access to technology and donations and when it comes to food donations and food security.

I think that’s where…. The numbers I’m giving you are just what the district has had to pay, not even including a lot of the donations that have come from other agencies.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you.

Ken, did you want to weigh in on this, or are you okay? Okay.

Any other questions from members? Okay.

Thank you very much to our presenters. We appreciate everything you’re doing for our K-to-12 students and, in particular, pivoting during the pandemic and all of the things that you’re doing. I know it’s particularly hard.

I must say a lot of times the school districts, especially the staff, they don’t always get all of the recognition they deserve in terms of how much incredible amount of work that’s gone on in this period. So I want to extend that thanks on behalf of the whole committee for everything that you’re all doing for our communities and for our children. Thank you so much.

With that, I would like to take a recess until 3:30. Thank you very much.

The committee recessed from 3:18 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right, everyone. We are continuing our presentations on K-to-12 education.

First up we have Stephanie Higginson from B.C. School Trustees Association.

Stephanie, please go ahead.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 3 – K-12 Education

B.C. SCHOOL TRUSTEES ASSOCIATION

S. Higginson: Uy’skweyul. En:nthe pe Stephanie Higginson. Tu ni cun utl Snuneymux.

I’ve given you a traditional Hul’q’umi’num’ greeting, which is the language of the lands upon which my own board of education is situated. I’m coming to you from the lands of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

I’m presenting on behalf of the B.C. School Trustees Association. The BCSTA represents all 60 boards of education across British Columbia, and together, the province and boards of education co-govern B.C.’s public education system. I extend my gratitude to the committee and my fellow panel members for their time and willingness to hear about funding implications for education in B.C.

After many years of misunderstandings and disagreements between the province and boards of education regarding operating surpluses, district contingency funds and allocated district reserves, the Ministry of Education and the BCSTA are working together on the creation of a provincial protocol on district reserves. Unfortunately, that work was interrupted by COVID and remains incomplete at this time. For more information on this topic, I encourage the panel to read the 2017 report of the Financial Health Working Group, held on the Ministry of Education website.

I give you this information because while it may appear that boards of education will be finishing the year with larger than normal operational surpluses as a result of the suspension of in-class instruction, which may influence your thoughts with regards to how much money the province should allocate to education in B.C., much of this money will need to be spent in the upcoming school year on COVID-related costs.

These costs include increased cleaning personnel and supplies; increased portable technology; professional development for our staff to adapt to the new normal; training and mental health support for students and staff; and what is sure to be an increase in staffing replacement costs, due to much stricter rules regarding coming to work with symptoms and 14-day quarantine requirements. Further to this, many districts are facing a loss of revenue from international students, leaving large gaps in their operating budgets that will need to be filled.

You can see that the list is long, and any cash surpluses from this year will quickly be utilized to cover COVID-related costs in the upcoming school year. If the current context continues beyond the next school year, there will be fewer international students in B.C., resulting in larger losses of operating revenue for many districts. These are the funds that allow districts to create programming that is unique to their local context, that drives the public and public education and connects communities to their schools.

In the upcoming school year, many districts will utilize their contingency reserves to help cover those lost revenues. However, with all of the other COVID-related costs, we expect to see district reserves will be exhausted to cover the costs in the 2020-21 school year.

Going forward, even a return of 50 percent of international students that we normally see in B.C., we will see deep cuts in some of the largest school districts in the province, impacting hundreds of thousands of students. Therefore, if this does become a new normal, the ongoing loss in revenue will need to be addressed in the next provincial budget.

Finally, I’d like to address the larger issue of overall funding to education in B.C. While boards of education recognize that the province is currently facing significant economic uncertainty, we implore that the pandemic not result in a reduction of funding to the education budget.

It is well documented through previous submissions to this committee that even a status quo budget will result in cuts to programming as a result of inflationary cost pressures faced by boards of education. Today’s students do not deserve to have us invest less in them as a result of the current global pandemic. We owe it to them to ensure our system remains the world-class education system that B.C. is known for.

In conclusion, I’d like to finish with an offer of support for the province’s economic recovery plan. The list of capital upgrades and replacement cost for schools across British Columbia is in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. Boards of education have long requested capital upgrades and replacements to their buildings.

As the government turns its attention to economic recovery through infrastructure renewal, we ask that the capital budget for education be a priority for this renewal program. Prioritizing schools for capital renewal will provide much-needed outlets for economic recovery, as well as the province, while benefiting future generations of British Columbians.

Thank you for your time. I welcome any questions you have regarding my presentation — or anything else education- or funding-related that you may want to know about.

Huy ch q’u.

[3:35 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Stephanie.

Next up we have Andrea Sinclair from B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils.

Please go ahead.

B.C. CONFEDERATION OF
PARENT ADVISORY COUNCILS

A. Sinclair: Good afternoon. I acknowledge that I’m speaking today on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the Stó:lō, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations.

The B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils is a registered non-profit and non-partisan charity and is the provincially mandated voice of parents of over 565,000 children attending public schools.

Since 2014, this committee has repeatedly affirmed the importance of investing in K-to-12 education and that it’s not adequately supported by public funds. This committee has also recommended the need to ensure that every child, including children with special needs and vulnerable students, can benefit from the education system.

The current pandemic has the capacity to affect every individual, and how each person responds can potentially affect everyone else. This is most true with children and youth. Our children are facing increased levels of stress and anxiety both at home and at school. We have three key recommendations we believe are critical for every child to have equitable access to public education with the supports and services they need to succeed and thrive during and post pandemic.

Recommendation 1 is to safeguard the stable, predictable and adequate education funding. There’s a very strong case to be made to ensure the provincial government safeguards a continued investment in public education. Education must be at the centre of our pandemic recovery plans to ensure that we build resilience for the future and prevent inequalities from further widening.

Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for global education, recently stated: “Governments have to be persuaded not to crowd out education because of pressures to spend on health and social safety nets.” Beyond learning losses, especially for the most disadvantaged children, the new normal will require more funding for learning, recovery and acceleration programs, school health and safety, connectivity and support to teachers.

There is also a historic and continued heavy reliance on PACs and parents to raise funds for items which should be covered by school budgets. Since March 2020 and throughout the next 12 to 18 months in this pandemic environment, PACs will not have the ability to fundraise as before, as their communities have been adversely affected financially. Additionally, parents will not have the mental energy and bandwidth to engage as they had before.

We ask that the provincial government act now to safeguard adequate, stable and predictable funding for K to 12 to ensure the provision of education programs, resources, wraparound services and personnel that meets the needs of all students now and through the pandemic.

Recommendation 2 is to increase capital funding. Capital projects benefit the economy in infrastructure by creating much-needed jobs and would help reduce the backlog of school building upgrade projects and new builds.

According to the Ministry of Education’s Seismic Mitigation Program Progress Report of June, there are 16 projects proceeding to construction, 29 at business case and over 240 of them deemed future priorities. Sustaining capital investments in new construction, seismic upgrades and maintenance will help support infrastructure and job creation.

With the government’s commitment dates fast ap­proaching, there needs to be strengthened financial commitment to help expedite the SMP program to ensure all children across B.C. are learning in safe buildings. Capital investments, which enable the building of new seismically safe schools, cannot be halted. We ask that the treasury increase capital funding for the Ministry of Education to continue to accelerate the program to meet provincial commitments.

The Ministry of Education’s playground equipment program also recognizes the ongoing and significant pressure on parents to fundraise for school playgrounds. Currently there are a number of schools without any playground facility for their children. Given our current pandemic environment and that children playing outside is essential to both their physical health and mental well-being, playgrounds on school sites are critical. We also ask that the treasury double that capital funding to the Ministry of Education’s playground program, which recognizes one of the many inequities within public ed.

Our final recommendation is to increase operational funding. Last week, during these consultations, the Canadian Mental Health Association urged this committee to invest in mental health and well-being, especially given the impacts of COVID-19 and the provincial recovery phase from the pandemic.

In their report Kids Can’t Wait in May, Children First Canada stated: “Children are uniquely impacted by the crisis, and they and their families need urgent attention and support. Children are affected by disruptions to their daily lives due to the closure of schools, recreational programs and other public places.”

We ask that the provincial government increase public education operational funding to ensure sustainable, predictable funding through a student-centred model with wraparound supports for children and youth, who are all affected by the pandemic.

[3:40 p.m.]

In conclusion, parents strongly believe that public education must remain at the forefront of government’s list of priorities.

While we recognize that this will be a lean year due to the pandemic, which will continue for many months, the provincial government cannot afford to take a year off or defer education funding. It is essential that public education remains a priority for our future generation during these incredibly stressful times. We need to stay the course on funding for public ed and the process of the funding model review. We must all work together to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on children and youth. It’s not just another year.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Ian Rowe from Lord Roberts Elementary parent advisory council.

Ian, please go ahead.

LORD ROBERTS ELEMENTARY
PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

I. Rowe: Hi. Thank you for having me today. I really appreciate the time and first would like to, as others have, acknowledge that we are speaking from unceded territories and share my support in alignment with the speakers you have already heard today.

I wanted to come today because, while you’re hearing from many groups, I thought that sometimes from the specific you can better understand the universal. I’m here as the chair of Lord Roberts Elementary to speak about our school and the examples that we can learn from this, which we know apply across the province to schools absolutely everywhere.

We are a school that will next year have 650 students that speak over 27 different languages — the third-largest school in the Lower Mainland — and we have incomes that range from well over $100,000 to below the poverty line. We have an amazing school full of excellent educators, and we love working with our administration. But, as you know, there are some challenges in all schools, including ours.

Before I get into those specifically, I’ll say that also my professional background is of having worked in IT and sales for over 15 years and having worked closely with many schools. This has led me to see all the work that PACs do from the other side, where teachers, students and parents come in to buy technology and other needs directly from retailers and other places instead of having it funded from the ministry.

To add today, there are two broad things that I hope the Finance Committee will consider. One is, not surprisingly, more funding for our schools. There are many different places that we can speak about. I’ll speak about technology specifically in our school. This year, we were lucky to raise over $15,000, which is going to allow eight classrooms to now have modern projectors so that teachers can teach in a way that parents think students are already being taught at schools. But, frankly, they’re just not, because teachers don’t have the schools….

We’re very excited about this. The reality is that next year and over the year after, we have 15 more classrooms to do just to bring our school to a standard that most of our parents think is already happening. I do introductions with kindergarten parents when they join our school, and they are always very surprised that even some years we have to make sure that we are buying pencils and erasers for teachers in some classrooms. So more money is needed, and that’s an example from just one school.

That’s before we even start to talk about technology, with carts full of computers and iPads and that sort of stuff. But we should talk about that, so let’s. Let’s talk about how we do buy those purchases. Our school is lucky that next year it’s been recognized as being underfunded and is going to have some technology provided to students.

This became apparent during COVID when it was discovered that many of our families did not have the technology they needed, so the school did an amazing job of trying to provide it for them. But, unsurprisingly, our iPads, as an example, were so old, they couldn’t be used for anything that we needed to use them for — notably, in this case, Microsoft Teams.

We see this all the time, because technology tends to be invested in as a capital expenditure. We know the government would prefer cap ex because it’s much better for accounting rules and whatnot. But I’m here to tell you, as a technology professional and as the chair of our PAC, that we need to start funding — especially small devices — as an op ex.

These devices need to be replaced every three to five years so that they can stay current and relevant. But when they’re not, what we see is parents going out and scrambling to buy them or kids missing out on opportunities to learn in a modern way that we know both the government and parents expect them to be able to. So there’s a need around having more money, but there’s also a need to find the money spent in a way that actually makes it usable so you don’t end up with defunct devices everywhere.

Lastly, I’d say — and this is very specific to Vancouver — that as we look at capital expenditures, I just really hope that the Ministry of Education specifically can remember that while we are land rich in Vancouver, we are cash poor.

[3:45 p.m.]

Selling our land so that we can pay for things that our students should have and that parents already think that they have is a shortsighted way of funding education. We hope that you will consider not how much land Vancouver owns but actually the needs of people and ongoing, stable cap-ex and op-ex funding.

Thank you so much for your time. If there are any questions, I would love to answer them. Again, I do appreciate you taking the time to consult here. I once again echo just how much support I have for the speakers you’ve already heard today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Ian. Appreciate the comments.

Next up we have Chris Ponti from district parent advisory council.

Please go ahead, Chris.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 73, KAMLOOPS-THOMPSON,
DISTRICT PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

C. Ponti: Hello there. Thank you for having me. I just want to make sure that you know I’m from SD 73 DPAC. Much like the other speakers, advocating for education is why I am here.

Today we want to focus on our concerns about the facilities and the condition they’re in. Some of the conditions are really shameful, actually. Systemic underfunding has led to inadequate facility maintenance throughout the province. The annual facilities grant has increased by only 9 percent in the last 17 years, which is well below inflation levels.

Provincewide deferred maintenance is at an all-time high. And districts are struggling to fund necessary repairs and have become unable to work on improving facilities. The deterioration and impairment are visible across the province and is illustrated in mould and air-quality concerns we’ve seen in Sicamous, Nelson, Saanich and Surrey. We’ve seen parents and students have to go to school board meetings and beg their boards to fix washroom facilities in Coquitlam and Vancouver. And, of course, there’s lead-contaminated water in schools throughout the province.

These are just some of the examples. More and more money has to be spent on critical facilities infrastructure issues arising from these deferred maintenance problems, which will divert funds from essential classroom resources. This, along with the general underfunding of education, has resulted in a shortage of textbooks, science equipment, fine arts supplies, sports equipment, musical instruments and trades and technology equipment.

Funding of these resources, as others have stated, has been shifted. The responsibility has been shifted to the PACs, and the local PACs have had to raise money in order to get these needed supplies. This has led to inequities based on geographic areas and socioeconomic status, which just isn’t right.

The bottom line is that the moneys allocated to the Ministry of Education from the Ministry of Finance are insufficient. It’s simply impossible for the districts to adequately repair and maintain provincial school facilities under the current funding constraints. Every student in British Columbia deserves a safe and comfortable learning environment, in addition to a fair and equitable opportunity to grow.

An investment in education really is an investment in the future. And with the current economic climate and the government looking to provide stimulus to the economy, it just makes perfect sense to put that money into the education system. I hope you do that. Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Chris.

Questions from members?

D. Barnett: Thank you for your presentations.

To Stephanie, if I may. Stephanie, how many international students will you be losing?

S. Higginson: It varies across the province, district to district. A number of the Metro and Lower Mainland districts have more of those students than other parts of the province, obviously, in terms of being places that international students want to go. But international students are found throughout the province.

We have one district that I think is expecting down to only have about 10 percent of their regular amount of students, and it’s resulting in about a $3 million gap in their budget that they’re going to have to fill, using their current restricted savings in order to fill that gap in their budget. So that’s money that…. They collect fees from the students, and then they utilize that money. They roll it into their operating budgets. So across the province, we won’t know the exact number.

[3:50 p.m.]

That’s for next year’s budget that we’re really going to be hit hard on, which is not what we’re actually talking about right here. We’re going to be talking about the school budget for the ’21-22 school year. If this becomes a new norm and we continue to see a decrease in international students, then this year districts will have exhausted their reserves in order to cover that gap, in order to pay for the COVID-related costs. Ironically, those are all the types of….

Those funds, those reserves and often that money from international students go to pay for the two things that Ian and Chris are talking about — that technology and classrooms and things like that in a lot of districts. It will have a direct result on our ability to continue to maintain the ongoing technological requirements, never mind the COVID technology requirements that we’re currently being faced with.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Stephanie.

Did anyone else want to comment on that at all? All right.

Any other questions from members? Okay.

Well, thank you very, very much for your presentations, everyone. We really appreciate everything that you do for our children and also all the efforts that have been made during the pandemic, not only to keep our citizens safe but to keep our children safe as well — and everything you’ve done.

A lot of parents groups…. I have a grad, and I know there are a lot of grads that are having a hard time. My grad is no different than anyone else in this province. We’ve had our meltdowns. I do want to say that the PACs and the school boards and everybody have been really trying hard to do the best they can in a very difficult environment.

I wanted to extend my thanks on behalf of the committee for all of the work that you’re all doing, bending the curve and trying to survive in a very difficult time. We certainly hear what you’re saying in terms of funding pressures. Thank you so much for everything.

With that, we will recess until 4:10. Thank you very much, everyone.

The committee recessed from 3:51 p.m. to 4:10 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hello, everyone. Welcome back. We are hearing presentations today on K-to-12 education.

Next up we have Teri Mooring from the B.C. Teachers Federation.

Teri, please go ahead.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 4 – K-12 Education

B.C. TEACHERS FEDERATION

T. Mooring: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m pleased to be presenting to you today. You have a copy of our BCTF submission. I’m going to review a few aspects of it, and then my colleagues who are following me will do a few other aspects of our brief.

It’s in this unique and urgent context of a public health crisis that B.C. teachers are pleased to present our views on the priorities for the 2021 provincial budget. This year our brief to the committee is focused on two key areas: those aimed at underlying, long-term issues in the public education system; and those arising from the intertwined public health and economic crises we now face as a result of COVID-19. A single aim unites them: to give our students the education system they deserve, one that is healthy and resilient in every sense.

We also urge the committee to bring forward the recommendations of previous reports that have called for adequate, stable and predictable funding for public education, bolstered by immediate enhancements to deal with health and safety and community-building. Government must urgently make the necessary investments in health and safety that are foundational for public education to proceed during the current pandemic. While some measures may be temporary, these investments should be seen as building blocks for a more resilient system, better capable of withstanding future crises.

With a global pandemic ongoing, school districts will be facing cost pressures due to the heightened use of sick leave by teachers and other staff complying with the public health regulations. Districts must have the resources to hire replacement staff as necessary.

Public health officials have also stressed how frequent cleaning and disinfection are crucial to slowing the spread of COVID-19. School districts must have the capacity to increase custodial staffing as well as to purchase cleaning supplies and PPE. Educators are front-line workers and should have access to PPE upon request, as should students. We can’t allow PPE or the access to it to be a new source of social inequity.

Finally, health and safety go beyond the measures required to make schools physically safe. The pandemic has led to significant amounts of trauma and stress for students and teachers. In response, government should provide districts with targeted funding for increased mental health supports centred on a trauma-informed approach. This should include resources for teachers, a trauma-informed approach to teacher mental health and increased numbers of counsellors in schools.

Teacher recruitment and retention measures are another long-standing priority. According to the provincial labour market projections, B.C. schools will require more than 18,000 new teaching staff over the next decade. We know school districts are reporting chronic shortages of teachers to teach on call as well as general and specialist teachers. We also know there’s a large number of uncertified instructors employed on letters of permission without any formal teaching certification. In 2017, there was a task force that gave us a set of recommendations that were extensive. Unfortunately, only a handful were implemented.

In the time I have remaining, I have two other areas in the education context. One is child care and the other broadband. In 2018, government embarked on the historic path of a $10-a-day child care system. We think it should be fast-tracked. We think the number of $10-a-day child care spaces should be increased by a mix of transitioning existing licensed spaces and building new public child care facilities.

What we know is that underemployment and unemployment in this crisis have disproportionately impacted women. A rapid expansion of child care would allow women to return to the workforce more quickly and ensure the crisis does not further accentuate existing inequalities.

Universal broadband is also a second major public investment that is urgently needed. The pandemic has exposed many existing inequities, and access to broadband Internet is one of them. The inequity is felt even more strongly today by school-aged children, as online and remote learning has increased dramatically as a public health measure.

[4:15 p.m.]

Finally, schools are not only places of instruction but also hubs of our community. This role is even more important during these trying times. They are where children develop intellectually, emotionally and socially, and they’re gathering places for parents and others from all walks of life, providing invaluable public space in an increasingly privatized world. In short, they are central to social and civic life in B.C. Adequate education funding recognizes the multiple roles schools play in community life and enables them to support communities far beyond the classrooms.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Teri.

Next up we have Denise Wood from the Nanaimo District Teachers Association.

Please go ahead.

NANAIMO DISTRICT
TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

D. Wood: Hi. I’m joining you today from the traditional Coast Salish territory of the Snaw-Naw-As people. I thank the Snaw-Naw-As for their stewardship of the land, and I recognize that I have much to learn from their example.

At a nearby high school, there’s a student with a degenerative disease that results in increasing weakening and breaking down of skeletal muscles over time. The student is unable to walk, unable to toilet himself and unable even to open his lunchbox. He does not qualify for full-time support. His peers must help him eat his lunch. He needs to wait to use the washroom until there’s an available adult. Unfortunately, this student’s story is not unique, but it is the story of special education funding.

Supports for special education funding have been eroded to the point that every decision, every dollar spent is a juggling act trying to patch the gaps and address the most pressing issues. Districts are not funded enough to fully meet the needs of our most vulnerable students, so they supplement special education with money that would have been used to buy textbooks or technology, cleaning supplies or custodial time. Everyone in the system is affected by the lack of targeted special education funding because the money does not spread far enough.

My name is Denise Wood, and I represent the Nanaimo District Teachers Association. We are 1,200 classroom and specialist teachers. These teachers work in the ridings of Nanaimo-Cowichan, Nanaimo, and Parksville-Qualicum.

Our story is not different from what is happening across the province. Students are sent home because their school cannot help them. Students cannot attend full-time because the supports aren’t available.

Classrooms have to be evacuated regularly when a child has violent episodes, and there are not enough staff to avert the crisis before it happens. Students don’t get the one-on-one support they need because a child down the hall has more need. Special education teachers are called away from their usual duties to cover for absent teachers because we have a teacher shortage. It is a patchwork system trying, and often failing, to address the most urgent issues.

In an equitable system, everyone would receive the supports that they need. In an equitable system, need would be assessed and strategies adopted to avoid a crisis. But when there is not enough money, only the crises are addressed.

I am here today to ask you to provide funding so that every child in the system can receive the support that they need. Research shows that providing that support early in a child’s schooling can be cost-effective, so I’m asking for special education funding that allows for early diagnosis and early intervention.

The idea that allocating funding for special education differently will somehow solve the problem is false. Devising ways to slice the pie differently doesn’t solve the problem if the pie is not big enough to start with. If we cannot meet all the needs, the needs of all of our students, we do not have equity in public education.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Denise.

Next up we have Matt Westphal from the Surrey Teachers Association.

Please go ahead, Matt.

SURREY TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

M. Westphal: Thank you very much. I am the president of the Surrey Teachers Association. We’re the largest local teachers union in B.C., representing about 6,000 members of teachers and associated professionals.

Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My remarks are going to focus on two areas. One is adult education, and the other is capital funding.

[4:20 p.m.]

Now, before we speak about adult education, we need to think about the particular characteristics of an adult learner. Often those learners are working full-time while going to school — single parents living below the poverty line, English language learners — and they have challenges in literacy, numeracy and other competencies. Many of them are pursuing education as adults because the K-to-12 system failed them when they were younger. This is the legacy of the cuts to student support, which go back to 2002.

The key problem for adult education is the inequity in funding. The current basic per-student funding, FTE, for adult education is $4,773 a year, whereas for K to 12, it’s $7,648. That’s a gap of 36 percent, and that gap creates significant inequities. One of those inequities is in the area of extra supports.

The need for services such as learning support or speech and language pathology or counselling doesn’t end just when a student turns 18, yet no additional funding is provided for these services, which are essential to students’ success. So the funding needs to be found elsewhere.

Another consequence of this inequity in funding for adult education is that adult ed courses run on a very compressed timeline. Students may have as little as 80 hours of instruction to complete the course, compared to 120 hours in the K-to-12 system. So adult education students only have two-thirds of the time that their counterparts taking the same course in K to 12 have, and they’re also doing it without access to all the same additional supports that students in secondary school, for example, would have.

The result is often that the students might need multiple attempts to pass the course, and that shouldn’t happen. With proper support, more of them would be able to succeed on their first attempt.

Our other recommendation regarding adult education is providing a wider access to a wider range of course offerings for students who are completing the adult education Dogwood. Currently it’s a very basic menu of courses that are available, not the full range of courses which are available, say, to the students who are doing upgrading. In a time when retraining is going to be key to our recovery, there need to be more options available for adult learners.

On capital funding, our recommendations focus on building standards and on seismic upgrades. This government has put far more money in the past four years into capital funding projects than happened under the previous government. And working in Surrey, those were direly needed. But even more is needed because our growth here is over 1,000 students per year in enrolment. Just to keep up with that growth, you would need to build a new elementary school every year and a new secondary school every three years. And that’s just to keep up with the growth. It’s not enough to take students out of portables.

We’re not the only place with these constraints. Chilliwack is having severe constraints — and Sooke and other districts around the province. But COVID-19 has caused us to also think about the health and safety of our buildings in a different way. In Surrey, classes get organized at or close to their maximum size, and that creates real challenges when we’re looking at density targets for schools and also limits how many students can gather in a space and still maintain physical distancing. Handwashing protocols are a real challenge when most rooms don’t have sinks.

So we need to think quite differently about school design, because even though this pandemic won’t be here forever, we need to design, now that we know what is required, with future pandemics in mind.

The final point is about seismic upgrading and the need to accelerate it. We know that a very large earthquake is almost a certainty. It could happen today. It could happen centuries from now. But we need to be ready for it. About 79,000 students are in schools which are at the three highest risk levels for a seismic event, and no work is currently being done on those schools. It could take as late as 2050 just to deal with all the upgrades for schools that we know right now need the upgrading. And that’s not even factoring in schools that might need it in the future, as they age.

This backlog leaves children and employees at significant risk. If there is a major earthquake, we don’t want to look back and wish that we had made this a more urgent priority when we had the chance.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much.

Next up we have David DeRosa from the B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association.

Please go ahead, David.

B.C. PRINCIPALS AND
VICE-PRINCIPALS ASSOCIATION

D. DeRosa: Thank you to the committee and to my colleagues on the education panel today. I’d like to acknowledge, first of all, that I’m on the traditional territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nations, and I’m grateful to be here.

[4:25 p.m.]

On behalf of the 2,600 principals and vice-principals in British Columbia, I’d like to present a couple of recommendations. You do have the documentation there with you, but in particular, I would just like to point out some key perspectives that I think coincide with some of the concerns around ensuring equity across our beautiful province.

Recommendation No. 1 is that the provincial government fund a negotiating process that supports our objective to provide a provincial negotiation structure for principals and vice-principals in B.C. This may sound a little bit peculiar, but the BCPVPA believes that a provincial structure will enhance the system by ensuring that there will be economic efficiencies and equity of supports for students — a productive redirection of school district resources away from the personal services contract discussions that are currently happening and towards supporting our high-performance schools.

Our focus could then be where it should be, which is on student achievement and the support of our staff and our school communities. This efficient and cost-effective contract administration and review process is something that we feel will provide efficiencies and economies of scale and equity of supports for students.

In terms of capacity and the complexity of this particular issue, we look at it in three levels in terms of our structure — organizations, district staff and individual PVPs. So currently not only are we supporting our members in this process but also district staff.

Historically, that was fine because we would have folks coming and going from different roles, but in the last several years, we have seen a greening of the sector, and our capacity, both as a sector and as an organization, has been stretched to its limits. So what we’re looking for is a way to significantly increase the support for individuals but also for the sector as a whole.

When we think about complexity, our primary concern is that we’re seeing a growing trend of circumstances that are quite one-sided, and this is leading to significant distractions for principals and vice-principals who are already doing their best to meet the needs of a very complex system. COVID-19 is an example of how quickly that can change from what would be a normal process and routine to something that is so significant that requires incredibly structured and supported leadership.

Our second recommendation is that the provincial government invest in our association to deal with and present the emerging health crisis affecting school leaders. We’re requesting dollars to invest in a health and well-being coordinator role and also programs to support leaders in schools and in school districts. How we would do that would be to engage with experts and researchers to identify, address and proactively mitigate the challenges where they currently reside.

We would have three specific targets. We would, first of all, target individuals, as our current data shows that the impacts of the role are felt in different ways by new-to-the-role, mid-career and veteran principals and vice-principals. So the strategies and skills that can be learned are there, but there’s also an awareness of the circumstance and the context for each individual. Individual self-care would be critical to this process.

Our school communities. It’s clear through research from our early- and middle-year development instruments at HELP, UBC, that we have the potential to identify school communities showing indications that enhanced support for children — and, therefore, equity — would make a huge difference. Leadership would be necessary to support that.

Our final target would be system awareness leading to transformation. As actors in the system, we recognize the complexities, but collectively we’re so busy doing that work — literally building the plane while flying it. This investment would support the purposeful engagement of doing the work in a way that supports students, staff and leaders at the same time.

So we’re recommending an investment in what would be a compassionate system leadership approach, a coor­dination of scope, alignment of research, development of analysis tools, enhancing system awareness and the coordination of a programmatic delivery to enhance capacity.

Those are our two recommendations. My thanks to the committee.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, David.

Before I open it up to the panel, I had a question about the second recommendation in regards to funding your association. Is this something that would come, in your mind, from the Ministry of Education? The question is: has that ask been made of the ministry? Are they aware of this ask? I’m wondering what the status of that is.

[4:30 p.m.]

D. DeRosa: Previously we focused on leadership development. The Leadership Development Working Group has provided funds. In the context of health and well-being, it can be connected to one’s capacity, skills and abilities in the role. So we were looking at that. What we’re finding now is a much more purposeful focus on targeting the well-being and the health issues that we’re seeing through our data and the number of folks that are transitioning to long-term disability. We’re having to target, let’s say, less on the educational capacity and more on the health capacity. So this would essentially be a new ask.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, I just wanted to clarify. Thank you.

Denise, I had a question for you in regard to that one example you gave us of a student who wasn’t able to get special needs funding. I’m just wondering. Could you maybe tell me…? Just out of curiosity, are these sorts of situations happening because they’re not being assessed, or because they don’t have the funding? Perhaps you could just tell me why this student in particular, let’s say, has run into that situation.

D. Wood: Well, this particular student is a level 2, so they do bring some funding into the system. But the district, like most districts, has a number of students who require funding, and it just doesn’t go far enough.

This particular student can manage without having full-time support. Their disease is such that at some point, they’re going to lose the ability to speak. At that point, they would likely qualify for full-time funding. Well, I would assume they would, because they won’t be able to ask for help. They’ll have to have someone with them full-time who can communicate with them and know when they need to use the washroom, or to help them with their lunch, and so on.

B. D’Eith (Chair): This particular student is getting some funding, but it’s not adequate, in your opinion. Is that the point, or is that…?

D. Wood: Well, the way funding works is that each student with a particular designation brings in a certain amount of money. The district pools that money and uses it to provide special education supports, but that pool of money is not enough to provide all the supports that are needed in the system. So the district has to pick and choose: “Who needs it the most? Where can we put it? This student can use it on this day, but they can’t have it every day.” It’s a stopgap measure.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Denise.

M. Dean: We’ve been hearing about the impacts of COVID, and I guess we’re all making assumptions that for some teachers, families, students, it’s creating a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress, but I don’t know exactly how much we know about that. I’m wondering. People with a provincial prospective like yourself, Teri: are we actually gathering information? Are we actually finding out what the impact is across the province, and if so, what trends are we seeing? Are there any inequalities that you could educate us about?

T. Mooring: Thanks very much for the question. The BCTF is in the process of gathering information. We’re doing a provincewide survey that is very broad, and we’re going to be able to segregate the data by region and district as well. I will say that part of the stress in the system is really indicative by the high number of teachers that are engaged in that survey. We’ll have those results at the end of this month, and we’re hoping to use those results to inform planning for September.

I can tell you anecdotally that we’ve been asking a lot from the system and a lot from the teachers in the system. Going to remote learning very quickly was one thing. Having teachers reimagine their classrooms coming back was quite another. It has been incredibly labour intensive, as we’re asking the teachers to do both: support students in class and remotely. That’s leading to very long hours.

[4:35 p.m.]

In terms of student impact, what we’re seeing is that the most vulnerable students are the ones that are most impacted, for many different reasons, by remote learning. For younger students, it’s a lot of pressure on families in order to support students to engage remotely.

Coming back, we’ve seen about 35 percent of students from K to 5 return, and much less in our secondary schools. There are secondary students that, quite frankly, haven’t engaged in remote learning at all. That’s also very stressful for teachers, because we aren’t sure what’s happening with them.

We know that our social services — our kids help line, the transition house…. Phone calls have dramatically increased. We know families are under a great deal of pressure due to social isolation and the inequitable impacts of the pandemic — in other words, impacting our more vulnerable families through job loss, food insecurity and housing insecurity the most.

We have an incredibly stressed system right now. I know that anecdotally from meeting three times a week with local presidents. I get many, many calls and emails directly from teachers. So we’re absolutely willing to share the data once we’ve collated it. We think it will really illuminate the issues that we’re speaking of right now.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Teri.

I had a quick question for David on your first recommendation. Your organization has presented to this committee a number of times and talked about the challenges between the principals and vice-principals versus teachers and how the way the negotiations happen has led to some sort of strange results or results that aren’t always equitable, in your opinion.

You are asking now, as an association, to be given that sort of negotiating power. I’m just wondering: is this something that your members are behind? Is this something that the ministry is considering? Where are you with this suggestion?

D. DeRosa: Yeah. It’s been an ongoing conversation that we have been engaged in. When we surveyed our members — it was in June of 2018, I believe — we engaged in much more purposeful and with-intent conversation and discussion with ministry and BCPSEA over this. We had a 97 percent support rate from our members.

We surveyed them in early June, which is, strategically, probably not the smartest thing to do. They’re pretty busy. But we had very high engagement, and of course, obviously, 97 percent is a high-support rate.

The process has been conversational, but it doesn’t exist. So it’s kind of challenging to talk about something nebulous when there are existing structures, possibly even some legislation, around these concepts and ideas. It’s been baby steps, definitely, but our challenge is the greening of the sector at this point in time and how we have members who are transitioning from experienced roles as teachers into a formal leadership positional role as a vice-principal or even directly into principal.

We’re all responsible for our own professional pathways. But in the context of the contract, the complexity of that document, and the reality that it provides the financial security for our families, the mental and physical health security for our own benefit and, again, for our families…. We have folks that are signing contracts that are in good faith. Their assumption is that it’s going to reflect something that is in everybody’s best interest.

It’s a very different document from the colleagues in the same school district. The trend in that area…. We don’t believe that there’s some purposeful intent to that. But we do recognize that there are folks who are looking to modernize and change some things. But they’re very new to their roles. That can be in our responsibility as a group of principals and vice-principals in a school district.

[4:40 p.m.]

We have contract chairs — I think I mentioned that before — but they’re retiring. Then with them is a significant knowledge base that goes with it. To get up to speed takes literally years to be ready for that.

The same thing is happening in district offices in human resource roles. Folks are seeing that they’re looking to simplify certain things, but the implication of simplifying a contract means that what was in place and negotiated over years is sort of eliminated, and this new document is replacing it without a process to do that.

What we’ve been talking about is that we see a much more efficient use of time and energy. Really, we’re seeing it play out in recruitment and retention. The transition from teacher to vice-principal is something that we’re worried about. And just our own capacity as an organization to continue to provide supports in 60 different districts with literally hundreds of variations of contract language is challenging.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much for that.

Are there questions from members?

Okay, well, seeing none, I did want to say to all the associations and all the members that you represent, and, of course, vice-principals and principals, thank you so much, on behalf of everyone. I can speak for myself, but I’m sure I can echo the entire committee in saying how much we appreciate all the work that you have done for our children in K to 12.

I can speak personally. I have a grad who’s had a really hard year. But I’ll tell you: her teachers were there for her — not just school; they were there for her emotionally. They were there for her to get her through a really tough time. So I just want to….

Please convey to your members how much we appreciate everything they’re doing and also struggling with, trying to deal with online and physical teaching now — as well as the principals and vice-principals.

Huy ch q’u siem. Thank you so much, everyone.

Now, Members, don’t go away. We actually have our next two presenters. I would like to suggest we roll straight into that, because it’s the last two presenters of the day, and we could end a little bit earlier. If that’s okay with members…. Okay, we’re going to roll straight in.

Thank you, everybody. Bye, Denise. Bye, David.

Hi, Staci. Hi, Becca.

These last presentations are simply presentations with no questions. We will do both presentations, say thank you, and that will be that.

With that, Staci Cooper with Speech and Hearing B.C., if you could please go ahead.

Budget Consultation Presentations

SPEECH AND HEARING B.C.

S. Cooper: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. My name is Staci Cooper, and I’m the president of Speech and Hearing B.C. and a practising speech-language pathologist in the Kelowna region.

Our association works to represent all British Columbians and ensure that they have timely access to adequate care for their communication health. We also represent speech-language pathologists and audiologists serving British Columbians. We advocate on our patients’ behalf and for those who lack essential services. At the end of the day, it’s about access to care for everyone.

I’d be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank our communication health professionals across B.C. for overcoming the challenges and continuing to serve their patients during COVID-19. They have embraced new technologies and have gone above and beyond to ensure that there’s minimal impact to support over these last months.

I’d like to speak to three key areas that outlined how our current provincial health funding is not meeting the needs of British Columbians and what actions this committee could recommend to address them. The first area is early intervention for children aged zero to six. Speech and language skills link to cognitive developments, social skills and success in academic learning. Simply put, delays in inequitable treatment influence the trajectory of a child for a lifetime.

[4:45 p.m.]

At least one in ten preschoolers need to see a speech-language pathologist for support in developing age-appropriate communication skills. As early intervention SLP caseloads are often 80 or more children, it’s not unusual for children to be left waiting for months or years to see a publicly funded SLP in B.C. Some children will miss the critical early intervention years and not begin to receive services until they enter kindergarten.

Sadly, we’ve seen that during COVID-19, wait-lists have only grown longer. The recommended caseload for one full-time SLP equivalent is 25 to 40 children. Assuming the maximum caseload of 40 children and the prevalence rate of 10 percent of preschoolers requiring SLP services, B.C. would require over 550 full-time SLPs to address the estimated need, significantly more than the current 165. We recommend that the government address the lack of adequate SLP services with respect to early intervention by immediately adding 175 full-time SLPs.

The second area relates to full-time SLPs providing residential care services. According to the 2019 statistics from Speech-Language and Audiology Canada, British Columbia had the third-lowest number of SLPs per capita of all of the provinces. SLPs evaluate and treat communication and swallowing disorders that are often related to progressive neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia, ALS, MS, as well as those who have suffered strokes, traumatic brain injury, head and neck cancers and many other health problems.

The current lack of access to services for identification and treatment of communication health disorders affects overall health outcomes, length of hospital stays and quality of life. For our adult population, there are minimal treatment options, as MSP does not cover rehabilitation services, and publicly funded services are sparse, with long wait-lists.

We recommend increasing the number of practising SLPs per capita to the national average to ensure British Columbians with communication and swallowing difficulties have access to critically needed services. Two hundred additional publicly funded full-time SLP positions must be added to our health care system for adequate service provision to those in the general community and residential care facilities. Special attention should be paid to ensure that all regions in our province are receiving equitable service.

The third area relates to hearing aid funding. More than 10 percent of British Columbians experience some form of hearing loss, but less than one-quarter actually seek help, mainly resulting from prohibitive cost barriers. Hearing aids can be essential to maintain the ability to communicate and safely move around environments, for many. When left untreated, hearing loss can lead to further social isolation and depression and increase the risk of cognitive and physical health issues.

We know that the prevalence of hearing loss increases for those aged 65 and older, when most transition to a pension income. The $2,000 to $8,000 cost for a set of hearing aids, which will require replacement every five years, is a major burden to a pensioner earning less than $10,000 to $20,000 annually.

B.C. currently lags behind other provinces in providing basic financial support for hearing aids and assisted listening devices. Hearing aids are not covered under MSP, with only limited third-party funding. Seniors are feeling the brunt of COVID-19 to their health, including increases in social isolation and communication challenges. The government should not be contributing to these burdens.

We recommend the government better support B.C. residents by providing funding for hearing aids and assisted listening devices. There are ways that this can be done with focus on those in the lower income brackets. This funding will mitigate poor health outcomes associated with untreated hearing loss and ultimately reduce the burden on the health care system.

Thank you very much for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Very good. Thanks, Staci.

Becca Lewis from Citadel Speech and Language Services.

Please go ahead, Becca.

CITADEL SPEECH AND
LANGUAGE SERVICES

B. Yu: Thank you for the invitation to speak today. My name is Becca Yu, and I’m here to talk about my personal and professional experiences as a health care professional.

I have been a speech-language pathologist for ten years. I started my career working in public health, providing early intervention for children. At the time, the wait-lists were long, and many children didn’t receive adequate services before they aged out. Ten years later, unfortunately, not much has changed.

Now as a private practitioner, I see families wait months, if not over a year, to receive services. Since the pandemic, these families have watched the wait times continue to grow. Children between the ages of zero and six face a critical development period for speech and language skills. The time spent waiting for therapy is a loss of opportunities that may never be recovered, even with later intervention.

The inability to access early intervention may have lifelong impacts, and I urge the government to increase the early intervention funding to hire more FTEs to decrease the backlog of many years of underfunding and reduce the reduction in services due to the current pandemic.

As an active member of my community, I have tried to help others access supports and services for a better quality of life.

[4:50 p.m.]

Due to the pandemic, many people feel isolated, and people who are deaf and hard of hearing may feel an even a greater sense of isolation because regular surgical masks impact their ability to hear speakers clearly and eliminate their ability to read lips.

Recently I spoke to someone in the community, in my community, looking for masks with clear panels across the mouth because her mother is hard of hearing and was becoming more and more anxious during outings as she found it difficult to communicate even with her daughter and husband when they were wearing masks.

Currently the government doesn’t provide funding for hearing aids, which would help many hear better in these situations, decreasing their sense of isolation. We see firsthand how our province lags behind other parts of Canada when it comes to funding supports for hearing aids.

To ensure that those on fixed incomes are as able to support their communication needs as others, I urge the government to better support B.C. residents by providing some sort of degree of funding for hearing aids and assistive listening devices. This will mitigate poor health outcomes associated with untreated hearing loss, reduce isolation and, ultimately, reduce the burden on the health care system.

Further, it is vital to ensure that PPE for those who need it is available and designed for the communication needs in mind. As a health care provider, I have taken on the responsibility to help many in my own family navigate across our health care system when they need it. What my family has learned in the process is that there is a lack of coordination between health authorities, and that across health authorities, it’s nearly nonexistent.

In the last few weeks, we’ve tried to communicate with a hospital ward to get updates about a family member who’s currently in the hospital with an extensive history of care. We’ve tried to reinstate care for my grandmother with dementia across two cities in the same health authority and support my husband during his follow up in a previous cancer diagnosis where care has spanned two health authorities. In each instance, we were met with many questions that should be in their files, but the files were either not complete or accessible because they were not transferred completely or require us to get more referrals.

Those experiences have made stressful times even more stressful and could’ve been easily avoided with a centralized records system. I urge the government to invest in a centralized record system for health care and upgrade technology that would reduce redundancies, save time and money and, ultimately, provide better care for British Columbians.

These reforms and many supports in our health care system would make meaningful and measurable changes to the lives of British Columbians. I thank you for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Becca, and thank you, Staci. We appreciate everything that you do in the areas of speech and hearing and appreciate the challenges that you have.

So that’s it for the day, Members and presenters. Thank you very much.

If I could have a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:52 p.m.