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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, May 2, 2013 | 4 Halton schools doing a lot with less funding by Dominik Kurek Oakville Beaver Staff The two English-language Halton school boards receive less funding per student than the provincial average, yet local students have some of the highest test results, Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn defends. The provincial Ministry of Education is projecting its 2013/14 school year grants for student needs (GSN) to average approximately $11,200 per student across the province. In Halton, the public board will receive approximately $9,879 per student and the Catholic board will receive approximately $10,192 per student, both well below the provincial average. Despite this lower funding, Flynn said parents should be proud of the education available to their children in the community. "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" he asked. "When you look at our system province-wide, it's ranked as the best in the Englishspeaking world; then you look at that system itself and you realize that our two school boards here in Halton consistently rank in the top K a r a s t a n A r e a five, usually first, second or third." During the annual provincial Grade 3, 6 and 9 Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) testing, Halton schools have among the highest percentages of students who achieve provincial standards. "If our boards were down near the bottom of the rankings and we were spending the same amount of money as we were in other boards, I'd be extremely concerned about that. It seems to me, what we're doing here, both school boards are handling the funds from the province in a very responsible way and they're making an efficient use of taxpayer dollars," Flynn said. According to the Ministry of Education, school boards receive GSN funding based on a number of criteria. One criterion is per-pupil allocation, which is an amount consistent for all boards in the province. The per-pupil grant amount differs per grade level. This pays for basic education resources such as teachers, classroom supplies, textbooks, computers and more. Another set of criteria is special purpose grants and this is where R u g s · M i r a g e Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn differences in GSN funding come in. This pays for such grants as special education, language, First Nations, Métis and Inuit education supplement, geographic circumstances, learning opportunities, safe schools supplement, continuing education and other programs, student transportation, cost adjustment and teacher qualifications and experience grant and much more. These are based on enrolment and other criteria, such as needs. For example, the Learning Opportunities Grant provides support to children based on demographic census information. "Depending where a board may be with respect to some of those criteria, that may increase or decrease the amount of the Special Purpose Grant," explained Halton District School Board superintendent of business services, Lucy Veerman. School boards in rural and remote areas of the province have higher costs because of their increased transportation costs, as they provide education to students on a much wider land area. As an example, Northeastern Catholic receives $16,557 per student. Then there is the other end of the spectrum, Flynn said. Places such as Toronto where the public and Catholic boards are receiving $11,339 and $11,258 respectively, there are urban issues and problems that require the schools to have special programs to deal with those problems. As an example, he said, Toronto has low-income areas where schools run special programming to deal with certain issues, so those schools may receive more funding through the Learning Opportunities Grant. "It's not just about transportation. It's not just about special programming. It's any number of things that we engage ourselves in when we look at for funding in order to provide those specific children in those specific areas with the best possible education," Flynn said. "You don't want to spend money just for the heck of it. You want to spend money where it's needed. Tax dollars are very scarce these days and you want to make the best use of it." Speaking of scarce tax dollars, Veerman said the Halton board and any board could use more funding. "There's always a need," she said. "If there was funding, there would always be additional resources that we would be able to provide to the students." Halton's neighbouring board are expected to receive similar amounts of funding next school year to the local boards. Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic will receive $10,700 per student and Hamilton-Wentworth public will get $10,599. 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