South Bruce Peninsular - Teachers Who Won't Learn - Comments

bwdsb 2006-2007 budget

mxyzptlk — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 11:43:19 -0400

garym, i was looking over the 2006-2007 bwdsb budget and noted that the budget amount for 'classroom computers' is $1,205,235 a 45.47% decrease in expenditure compared to the 2005-2006 budget. i believe the software licence fees are included that figure. do you know if the school board has adopted some open source initiative? i see on page 8 of the 2006-2007 final budget document that some of the decrease was achieved through a reduction in software maintenance agreements. i'll send a quick email to the board to see if they can tell me what percentage of the 1.2M budget is for software licences. i do know that the school board utilizes a lot of mac computers so some of their licence fees must be being paid to apple.
kltpzyxm

from a few years back

bub — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:12:50 -0500

It is getting worse every year, a few years back I posted this article in the forum, we need to step up to the plate..this is as big issue as the pipeline, in my opinion.

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"Did A.J.Krapper organize a mass walk-out of latrines?"
-zenGary

Ya wanna talk about the school board do ya :)

wayne tanner — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:24:12 -0500

One quick comment. The meeting they had to discuss the ways of cutting programs...ask Dean Currie the cost of the catered lunchfor all those at these meetings and those before them. It would be about the same ??? as running a breakfast program at a school for a month. Oh but they rely on donations and parents to deal with that. At last count they had at least 50 catered meetings that I attended including training day etcetcetc. So you take what I was fed at these events , and break it down cost wise , my guess it would equal a bowl of cereal and some toast and Jam for at least 10 kids per lunch and do the math. And this was for a lowly custodian...imagine those who meet all the time because that is simply all they do is meet..and get fed. Bring the brown bag, I know the local caterers will take a hit but when the high end at the palace cries once again that the school board has to cut costs then dont do it with your mouth full. And dont give lip service to caring about the needs of the kids, with your mouth full.
And yes I was right there at the trough with the rest of them.

Teachers Who Won't Learn

garym — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:59:31 -0500

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this news, because, yes, it is sad to see our hard-won public education forced into trimming the fat even more. News comes down the wire today how our Blue Water District School Board is having to search out even more places to cut-back on the costs of public education ...

Superintendent of Business Dean Currie announced to the Board yesterday that the Business Committee has developed a contingency plan to address the fiscal problems the Board is facing.
Currie says he is concerned about the pattern of expenditures over the last two years.

He says the Board should consider reducing 1.8 million dollars in expenditures from the budget.

Currie says he has met with all managers, principals, and union representatives in the last month and is getting good cooperation from them.

Currie is asking all departments to look over their respective budgets once again and see if non-contractual obligations can be deferred or eliminated.

Some of the non-contractual items include small capital stuff like furniture and equipment.

He says the cuts would not affect staffing or teaching-related programs.
Currie says he'll meet with the Business Committee on February 6 to update on the contingency plan.
[ via Bayshore Broadcasting Corporation ]

Quite apart from the obvious argument that, whatever public education may cost, it is cheaper than no public education, this is a tragic situation and rightfully grates our sensibilities, but it is far more tragic when we recognize how an overwhelming bulk of money annually vanishes uselessly and, let me stress this, NEEDLESSLY.

So where does the money go? Into teacher wages? Hardly. Into fuel costs? Keep guessing. A massive, a staggeringly massive chunk of the annual BWDSB budget is voluntarily poured directly into the pockets of corporate opportunism, the greatest part of which is paid out not for inflated public-speaker fees or outrageous overcharging on those precious laptops -- the vast bulk, enough to buy the kids dozens of completely stocked libraries of new books, enough to pay the wages of whole schools-full of teachers or fab full free gourmet hot lunches for everyone, is spent not on any service, not on any product, but entirely for software licenses.