Re: “School staff cut to help balance the budget” (The Leader, June 24).
The Surrey School District is reducing staffing by 135 full-time positions even though we have increasing enrolment. Unfortunately for the support workers, there will be layoffs to the street for some of our members and other members will have increased workloads.
What was missing from the article was the real reason for the layoffs and that is the chronic underfunding of the school system in B.C. It is not the “continuous increases in employee benefits, utility costs, and carbon offsets,” as Trustee Terry Allen said.
I truly believe that the trustees had hard choices to make to balance their budget and applaud the work they do to ensure we have an efficiently run district. But as someone that has worked in the system for the past 20 years, I know that we cannot continue to keep cutting services to children.
I urge our trustees to take a public stand with this government and insist that our schools are properly funded.
Janice Meehan
President CUPE 728