Extraordinary Meeting of the Board of Trustees
Highlights of the Sept. 1, 2004 meeting

Board Highlights

Peel board allocates $1.8 million of LOG funds for new staff to support students

The Peel District School Board has allocated $1.8 million of the $4.5 million of additional Learning Opportunities Grant funds to support the addition of 32 teaching assistants, six PSSP staff and a resource teacher for the 2004-2005 school year.

The 2004-2005 Peel District School Board budget was approved on June 24, 2004. At the time of approval, the Special Education ISA cycle 5 monies, equaling approximately $5.8 million, was not yet released by the provincial government and therefore represented a risk to the board budget. As a precaution, administration held back some additional expenditures required to support students and special education program.

On July 28, the Ministry memo B11 was issued confirming the release of the ISA cycle 5 dollars for the 2003/04 fiscal year and the 2004/05 fiscal year. The Ministry also signaled its intent to review the current ISA process. At the same time, the Ministry initiated a clawback of special education reserve funds held by school boards as of August 2003 and August 2004. These funds are being held in a fund by the Ministry to be allocated back to school boards through criteria yet to be developed. As a result, the ISA cycle 5 dollars remain a risk to the 2004/05 budget.

Ministry memo B12 released on August 17, 2004 outlines the availability of $4.5 million additional Learning Opportunities Grant (LOG) monies. This report contains a recommendation for an initial expenditure of a portion of these dollars to support students and programs.

To respond to the needs of students caused by system growth the board approved the following staff for the 2004-2005 school year:

• 32 teaching assistants
• 6 PSSP – 2 speech and language pathologists
• 2 social workers
• 2 psychoeducational consultants
• 1 resource teacher

Noted Janet McDougald, chair of the board, "We need to take this opportunity to hire more staff, even though our budget was approved in June. There are clear student needs in our schools that must be met. At the same time, we will continue to work with the Ministry to recover the ISA clawback as well as the expenditures included in this new staff allocation. The ISA clawback reflects proven student needs and it is the expectation of the Peel District School Board that we will, at least, receive the money that was clawed back, if not more."

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The next regular meeting of the board of trustees is Thursday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m.