March 17, 1998
(Education)

Government reinvests teacher salary savings

Education Minister Roger Grimes announced today that government has agreed to reinvest $9 million of $18 million in potential teacher allocation reductions to help school boards make improvements as a result of education reform. "Hopefully we have turned the corner on teacher reductions," stated Grimes. "Combined with last year's actions to pay off school board debt and provide guaranteed operating budgets in the face of significant student decline, government believes boards are well-positioned to organize high quality opportunities for our students."

With student enrolment declines of 4,600, this school year and a further 4,000 projected for the school year starting in September of 1998, school boards would normally have seen their teacher allocations reduced by approximately 425 units when schools close in June. In a meeting with the new school board chairs and directors of education, the minister confirmed that over 200 teaching units are being reallocated to the boards effective immediately. Meanwhile, Mr. Grimes is hopeful that additional units will also be available to deal with implementation of the Canning Report, Special Matters. He is confident this issue will be addressed in the upcoming provincial budget.

"By the time schools close in June, the school boards will have seen that their total allocations for the next school year have been reduced by 214 units from the number allocated this year instead of the 425 that they would have normally expected," said the minister.

Since 84 of those teachers were placed in the school system to accommodate the court injunction of last summer, school boards will only have to deal with an additional reduction of 130 units if they proceed with last year's plans.

"Government is confident that orderly decisions can be made without negative impacts on student programming," stated Mr. Grimes. "In fact, in many instances we expect improved programming opportunities to be the final result."

School boards have from now until May 7 before any potential lay-off notices have to be provided to individual teachers. "It is possible," said the minister, "that if the qualifications of the current teachers match the remaining job opportunities, all current full-time teachers will likely maintain a job for next year. As well, with over 300 retirements expected by the end of the school year, 100 or more new teachers can expect to find full-time employment for next year."

The minister requested that school boards accomplish the maximum amount of required and desired reorganization while minimizing disruption for students and teachers. Further announcements with respect to the total education plan for the next school year are expected in the upcoming budget.

Contact: Carl Cooper, (709) 729-5040.

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Fact Sheet
Student Enrolment and Teacher Allocations
1998/99

Student Enrolement

- The total number of students in schools during the 1997/98 school year is 101,608.

- The decline in student enrolment between the 1996/97 and 1997/98 school years was 4,597

- The percentage of enrolment decline, provincially was 4.6 per cent.

- The student enrolment in the province peaked in the 1971/72 school year when it reached 162,818. Since then, it has declined by 61,210 or 37.6 per cent.

- Since Dr. Len Williams presented his Royal Commission report in March, 1992, the student enrolment in the province has declined by 23,525 or 18.8 per cent.

- The decline by school district was as follows:

- The Francophone school board has a student enrolment of 267 for the 1997/98 school year.

SCHOOLS

- During the 1997/98 school year there are 391 schools in the province.

- This is a decline of 41 from the number of schools which existed last year.

TEACHERS (1997/98 SCHOOL YEAR)

- The Department of Education originally allocated 6,297 teachers for the 1997/98 school year.

- On July 8, 1997 Judge Leo Barry granted an injunction which prohibited school boards from closing schools unless they obtained permission from the denominational authorities.

- As a result of Judge Barry's decision, school boards were forced to reopen 20 schools which had been closed in June 1996.

- The Department of Education allocated an additional 84 teachers to school boards to assist them implement Judge Barry's order.

- The total number of teachers allocated to school boards for the 1997/98 school year was 6,381.

TEACHERS (1998/99 SCHOOL YEAR)

- If the Department of Education had applied the teacher allocation formulae as they had been used for a number of years, the reduction in the number of teachers in the province would have been 422.

- Government has decided to limit the reduction in the number of teachers to 214. This represents a reinvestment of 208 teachers or about $9 million directly into student instruction.

- It is anticipated that additional teaching resources will be allocated later to assist school boards with special initiatives, particularly with the implementation of recommendations contained in Dr. Canning's report on Special Education.

- The total number of teachers being allocated to school boards at this time is 6,166.

- An additional 193 teachers have been "added back" to limit the reduction, at this time to 214, from the 422 that would have otherwise occurred.

These 193 units have been distributed to school boards on a proportional basis in accordance with the number of teachers each board would have otherwise lost.

- The following summarizes the changes to the teacher allocations: