Enough already.
The past couple of months have featured headline after headline about troubles in the Surrey school district. Learning centres closed. Elementary school band programs cut. Schools running out of paper and paper towels. A loss of education assistant positions. StrongStart program reductions. The school district looking for donations to help feed hungry kids.
Not to mention the whole school overcrowding crisis that isn't going anywhere. Elementary and secondary schools across the district are still bursting at the seams, and funding for expansions and new schools doesn't come close to keeping pace with growth. And don't forget the portables the district has to pay for out of its operating funds – portables it can't even afford to move when school needs change.
Students are speaking up. Parents are speaking up. Teachers are speaking up. Support staff are speaking up. School trustees are speaking up.
It's well past time for Education Minister Lisa Beare and Premier David Eby to start listening.
It isn't good enough for them to offer up the same canned statements they've been making for years. Yes, we know the B.C. Liberal government before them underfunded education and left them in a bad spot. Yes, we know that the amount of money the government has put into education is higher than ever before.
Neither of those facts matter when the B.C. NDP has now been in power for eight years, and costs for everything – salaries, supplies and buildings – have risen faster than the funding attached to them.
It's no longer good enough for Eby to say the Surrey school board needs to live within its means and that it simply has to look harder at its budget to find ways to address a $16-million shortfall for this year. The board can only move money from one column to another for so long before acknowledging that there simply isn't enough money to go around.
The Surrey Teachers' Association says $3.8 billion more is needed for school districts in B.C. to keep up with operating and capital needs.
Addressing those needs won't come cheap. Not addressing them, though, will be far more costly in the long run.
No more excuses. It's time for action.
