North Van, West Van schools planning for full-time return to classrooms next year

School districts on the North Shore are expecting to go into the next school year without teacher layoffs, despite a continued dramatic drop in international students, and with students in class full-time.

School district staff in both North Vancouver and West Vancouver delivered the good news to trustees in public meetings Tuesday night.

“We’re looking at building a budget that will not require teacher layoffs,” said North Vancouver schools superintendent Mark Pearmain.

Pearmain said school district staff also expect to keep the same number of counsellors and specialist teachers in schools next year, despite the drop in enrolment.

Budgets to be approved next month

Neither school district has actually brought forward a budget for approval yet. Staff indicated they are waiting as late as possible to finalize preliminary budgets in order to base the numbers on the most up-to-date information from the Ministry of Education about what the next school year is expected to look like. Both school boards will consider budgets – which must be passed by June 30 – at their board meetings next month.

Both school districts saw enrolment of fee-paying international students – and the revenue they bring in – plummet this year with COVID travel restrictions. Normally, the North Vancouver School District would have about 625 international students enrolled.

This year, there were 310 international students – representing a revenue drop of about $5 million. Next year, staff in North Vancouver are projecting about 375 international students.

Drop in numbers of international students expected to continue next year

The drop in international students is expected to continue through next year both because of travel visa requirements and a decrease in the number of local families willing to host students during the pandemic, said West Vancouver schools superintendent Chris Kennedy.

This year, school districts also found themselves hiring extra janitors for cleaning and extra teachers specifically for online learning programs when not all families were prepared to send their kids back to class.

To help deal with the financial shortfall, both school districts received one-time extra funding from both federal and provincial governments. But that funding isn’t expected to continue next year.

School districts have been told to plan for full-time in-class learning during the next school year, said Pearmain, adding teens will likely have been vaccinated before the start of the school year in September.

Online 'transition' program to end

The school district is not planning to provide an online “transition” program – which was funded by one-time COVID funding – next year, Pearmain added.

About 800 North Shore students were enrolled in the online learning programs this school year.

So far it also isn’t clear what kind of extra cleaning is going to be required next year by the ministry, said Pearmain. Trustee Megan Higgins pointed out during discussion that recent scientific research has shown COVID is not being transmitted by surfaces.