YOUR Bayside PAC has just sent this letter to the Honourable Minister of Education, Mike Bernier.
Please consider copying and pasting it into your own email as a parent of Bayside! I have attached a version of this letter from a parent's perspective for you to customize and forward via email to Educ.minister@gov.bc.ca.
Dear Mr. Bernier,
Thank you again for your visit to Bayside Middle School on Monday, May 16th to announce the tremendous support from the Province towards our school facility. This will put our school back in the condition the staff and students deserve. While we are so very appreciative of this funding, we are compelled to support our District in it’s efforts to provide our children with the best education in this, soon to be upgraded, facility.
On behalf of the Parent Advisory Council (PAC) of Bayside Middle School, we would like to express our strong support of: School District 63 Unprecedented Decision to Request Government Return Money
Bayside’s PAC recognizes the untenable position that our
board has been thrust into by recent actions of the provincial government and
stands in solidarity with the school board’s unprecedented decision to request
the ministry of education return the funds.
Specifically:
1. Government took $700,000 we made in administrative savings into provincial coffers rather than having us move those savings into programs and services for students.
2. We have been required to pay $314,000 of annual costs for a new provincial network for internet access, up from a cost of $30,000 for the previous system, PLNet.
These actions prevent our board from fulfilling its statutory and legal obligations under the school act to provide educational services to our children while maintaining a balanced budget.
It is further concerning to all parents in our school district that after meeting with the Ministry, our school board has been forced to withdrawal this budget only to avoid a further $100K to $200K cost of a Special Advisor fee as appointed by the Ministry. This cost is too great to risk a further reduction to our continually underfunded education system.
The cost to our children’s continually underfunded education system is also too great for parents not to advocate until these unrealistic funding cuts are provided for by the provincial government.
Sincerely,
Sandra Arthur and Martina Redman
BAYSIDE MIDDLE SCHOOL PAC