File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: School district budget roller coaster takes another turn

Apr 11, 2025 | 12:30 PM

THE KAMLOOPS-THOMPSON SCHOOL DISTRICT is proposing deep staffing cuts in order to balance the budget next school year.

The district wants to eliminate more than 75 positions — 27-and-a-half on the teaching side and 49 on the support staff side. That is about three per cent of the district’s total workforce.

Speaking to our Dylana Kneeshaw this week, the district said the job losses are not expected to be “in-classroom positions or those connected directly to classrooms.”

That statement is meant to convince parents the cuts will have no effect on the education of their children.

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That idea doesn’t make sense, though.

In the grand scheme, the district’s entire purpose, its mission is to provide education for its students.

Cutting the number of people it employs and the amount of money it is spending will necessarily have an impact on how effectively it can carry out that mission.

That is, unless the district is admitting all these people it is letting go and all these expenditures it is cutting were extraneous. They weren’t actually necessary in the first place.

That would be the greater indictment.

To be a bit more charitable, public school districts in B.C. do have tough jobs to do.

They work at the pleasure of the Ministry of Education and have no other means to raise revenue through direct taxation.

Even the last-resort strategy of selling off surplus property to raise money would need to be approved by the province, which is unlikely to happen.

The community should be thankful the NDP government is investing in new capital projects in this district, but making those investments at the expense of the operational budget doesn’t make sense.

Check that — it may make sense on the ledger, but it doesn’t make sense on the ground and in the classrooms.

Both the province and the local district need to realize this roller coaster of surpluses and deficits, hirings and cuts, openings and closures is not conducive to an overall stable educational environment for our children.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.