Christie is a genius

[LoneWolf_53]

I believe education is a very important thing in society, and should be up towards the top of the list - tis a shame to see it more at the bottom funding wise. I don't have any kids, nor ever plan to.

Would you care to qualify that statement with some proof?

Our tax dollars go for the most part to two big ticket items, education, and health care, yet every other thread I read someone is whining about cuts to them, and lack of priority, when the truth is more money is spent on them every year.

What on earth should the government do, when it's clear that many of the most vocal whiners will never be content, no matter how much money goes to education and health care?

I suppose they could stop fixing roads, let bridges crumble, fire overpaid union workers, then channel all those savings toward elitist school trustees, hell bent on hanging on to empty schools. Yeah that's the ticket.

[bob vernon]

See? It's working. Now the local trustees are "hell bent on hanging onto empty schools". If a school like Osoy High is below 95% capacity, it should be closed and the leftist teachers, janitors, and staff thrown out on the street.

Hurry up and get those schools closed, with the blame put on the local trustees, not the province. And get the schools sold to Liberal-friendly developers asap before the enrollment rises. Who knows, those developers might even show their appreciation with a donation to the party.

[neroas]

[Urbane]

The United States spends more per capita on public education than any other country in the world and yet I haven't been reading about how great the American education system is. Previously I've posted the results of empirical research showing that money is not the answer when it comes to public education. Having said that I know that a reasonable amount of money needs to be spent but instead of always focusing on the bottom line and comparing ourselves to other places that may be spending more we should be looking at HOW we spend the money.

Should we be paying lots of money, as the Vancouver School Board is doing, to maintain empty classrooms? Should we be looking for the status quo when it comes to administration or should we be looking to share administrative tasks between and among districts? The Ministry often lays on new programs that cost money without fully funding those programs. Should the Ministry refrain from initiating programs that they're not willing to fund? Before we just hit the "spend more money" button let's look at how we're allocating resources first.

[Osoyoos_Familyof4]

Osoyoos Secondary is about 20% below capacity at present (not 95% as someone alleged ). Further, Osoyoos Elementary is close to capacity now and in a few years those children would have projected to make a 20% capacity deficit even smaller. Further to that, we are yet unsure of how many families we may see as a result of the Oliver prison opening (as likely there will be some families who will choose to live in Osoyoos and not Oliver.

Osoyoos schools (both of them) are the most successful (enrollment wise) schools in the entire district. The issue (one of them) is that the "consultation process" in the district in regards to what to do with it the deficit was total ca-ca. We can surmise this due to the fact that when the new Oliver high school was built (long before Osoyoos residents were informed of possible scholarship closure) it was decided to build a new Oliver high school over 300+ their current capacity. Further, once the sham of "consultation process" began, there were MANY cost savings ideas and solutions he community was willing to live with to make the school more viable, however none of them were seriously considered, because the decision was made long ago when a fancy huge high school was already on the drawing board in Oliver (again, that was 300+ students above their current capacity ). So really, there was no point in even pretending that they cared to present any options for the community they served.

[rustled]

budget.jpg

What you're looking at here in Table 1.15, neroas, is capital spending.

Basically, that's maintaining, upgrading (including seismic) and replacing buildings. Read what it says below that table for a better idea of what these figures represent.

See page 17 of the same budget document for table 1.9, Expense by Ministry, Program and Agency. That's where the bulk of the spending is.
http://bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2016/bfp/2016 ... l_plan.pdf

[rustled]

Osoyoos Secondary is about 20% below capacity at present (not 95% as someone alleged ). Further, Osoyoos Elementary is close to capacity now and in a few years those children would have projected to make a 20% capacity deficit even smaller. Further to that, we are yet unsure of how many families we may see as a result of the Oliver prison opening (as likely there will be some families who will choose to live in Osoyoos and not Oliver.
....

According to SD53, the current capacity of OSS is 71%.
https://www.sd53.bc.ca/district/osoyoos ... 202016.pdf
Capacity 325. Osoyoos Secondary enrollment 2015 was 230, or 71 percent, which is 29 percent below, not 20.
(And they have at least 20 staff. Perhaps some of those are part time, but it's still quite a ratio.)

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from. According to the school district the elementary school enrollment is dropping slightly, not increasing, so there's little likelihood of closing the gap.

Projected enrollment for Osoyoos Secondary in 2017 is 215, or 66 percent.

How empty is empty enough? How much of your children's education are you willing to gamble, waiting for populations to turn around?

[LoneWolf_53]

budget.jpg

Yes so now if you add the first two lines together, on your chart, as would be required, since they are both "education", it's fairly easy to see that education gets the biggest slice of the pie, with health a close second, just as I said.

Use the chart on page 17 of the other link in this thread and it appears health gets the biggest chunk, with education second, so in any case they are still the top two expenditures, yet people keep incessantly whining about how more money needs to go there.

Education needs to learn to make do with what it has, just as every other department has to do, so those VSB trustees need to get with the program.

[neroas]

Oh dangit. I lose. :P

On the flip side I know someone is waiting for it to close to see if real estate prices go down. Hmmm