Regional Office – 

Federal Funding Allocation

The division received just over $2M in federal funding to support a safe return to class in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Without this additional funding, staff reductions would have been necessary at community schools due to lower enrolments and the costs for substitute staff, additional cleaning and personal protective equipment.

This funding will allow the division to keep class sizes small in community schools by retaining existing staff for the remainder of this school year. A portion of the funding will also be used for additional staffing requirements at Vista Virtual School due to increased enrolment in online programs.

Request to Use Reserves

Increased enrolment at Vista Virtual School comes with additional costs, bringing their budgeted deficit to $3M for 2020-2021. Plans to cover the deficit include:

• Vista Virtual will receive $300K of the federal funding which has already been allocated to the division.
• An additional $1M in funding is expected due to recent changes to the funding manual.

To cover the remaining deficit the division will seek Ministerial approval to use $1.7M in reserves. These reserves are a result of the school’s projected 2019-2020 surplus from the addition of summer school, which saw over 19,000 credits completed by 4,069 students.

Check out the board meeting agenda and minutes for more information.

The next school board meeting is at the Regional Office on Thursday, November 12, 2020 starting at 9:00 a.m. Members of the public are invited to view a livestream of the meeting on our website.