Educators stunned by impending cuts

see for yourself

- January 13th, 2011 at 18:35:20

ANYONE even considering taking assistance from children who need it,be it a half hour to all day,visit the classroom in any school. Put YOUR child in that position and then speak out. Everyone write to the NDP now and make them responsible for making sure each and every child gets a well deserved education.

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do more with less

- January 13th, 2011 at 15:09:35

well Mom who can't understand this. The solution our company offers works in NYC, Los Angeles , Chicago, Boston , Ottawa and over 2000 districts in North America. 90 percent less energy, 70 percent Total cost of ownership savings and 75 percent savings on maintenance is why it is Good enough for the children of Wal-Mart Executives in Bentonville Arkansas. but so how the Children of Sobeys Executives in Stellarton ? In the case of our school district the savings modeled out on proven formula are over 4 million dollars a year without accounting for the increasing in electricity costs the board will deal with in the future. The future of Atlantic Canada is very dependent on how we maximize our sparse resources. All other territories are adopting common sense solutions because they know that if they don't the Chinese , East Indians and developing world will and they are becoming the masters of global economies via efficiency. There are about 24000 students in the district with decline numbers every year. There is a ratio of one Cupe member for every six students or 4500 CUPE members according to their president recently. The ratio of other staff probably puts this at a one to three ratio no doubt. Does any private company have one staff member for every six or three potential customers in the market place ? Do they keep that same level of staffing if the marketplace is decreasing in size? Our company is offering a solution that will achieve half the desired cuts without a single job loss. We could find even further cuts in ICT delivery via Green practice. The School board seems to relate these cuts as they cannot possibly cut without job losses. There will probably have to be job losses no doubt but cutting costs can be done by other means before that . I certainly hope that the students produced in this system would have the capacity to learn what is out there in the world instead of engaging in the same old virtol and game playing with the finances we are leaving these children to clean up in the Future. Why would they stick around Nova Scotia to pay huge taxes ? As too "disgusted" and Capitalism in Schools . in the US companies are lining up to use school parking lots and roofs for solar cell placement with schools making 100s of thousands of dollars . This is happening also in British Colombia and Ontario on smaller scales. Capitalism by efficiency or capitalism by opportunity is exactly how a Sobeys, Scotsburn , Kerr or others in this local made it and make the taxation roles to fund these schools. What is needed is some common sense solutions. the Strait area board was singled out for some efficiencies with the School Buses. Even the Chignecto board has had energy efficiency finds for ICT. Find more they are out there.

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Betty

- January 13th, 2011 at 13:25:50

All I can say is that Nova Scotia got what it asked for and now we have to put up with it for 2 1/2 more years! I don't know where this governments priorities lie but it certainly isn't with the best interests of the average Nova Scotia citizen.

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Kelly Tucker

- January 13th, 2011 at 13:25:33

Out raged to say the least : Unless your children are self learners, have lots of help from home, there education here in Nova Scotia will be worthless. How can our children compete with other provinces for scholarships, university , etc. We will not be getting equal ooportunity thanks to these budget cuts. We will lose Gym, Music,any extra activities, classrooms will become disruptive . I'm looking at HOME SCHOOLING. Get your SAC on board tell the Govt to BACK OFF!!!!

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Disgusted

- January 13th, 2011 at 10:28:45

I am so disgusted... education is one of the most important aspects of our life. It is the soul of our society. In speaking with educators I am aware that the CCRSB as a “middle man” for education is not needed. What if all the Board employees took a 22% drop in pay? Or were eliminated altogether? Why doesn’t the Minister of Education speak to the people who actually know what is going on in the schools about the budget. These employees, i.e. Principals, Teachers, EA’s, etc know that they cannot bear any more cutbacks in the classrooms. The teachers are overwhelmed with the different levels of teaching in the classroom due to inclusion. This leads to them spending most of their time on the kids with special needs and the others basically are on their own most of the time. They cannot tolerate more students per class. Whatever happened to the “cap” that was set up to limit the number of students per classroom? The government seems to be pushing us once again to pay for service. The families who can afford it will get fed up and send their children to private school. We are being pushed toward a level of capitalism in public education. We see this now in Health with the pay for service private clinics, and it will be the same with education as resources are taken away. It confuses me that the govt is spending at least $56 million on a new convention centre and reducing our education. Education is the soul of society! Stupid, stupid people...... In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. Mark Twain

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• 

  been there

  - January 13th, 2011 at 15:08:03

  Yes, too many administrators and not enough teachers. CCRSB is definitely top heavy. The most important people should be the children AND the teachers that work together every day. Trim the system as you trim a tree, top and edge branches that do minimal work.

do much more with less

- January 13th, 2011 at 08:59:46

To a Mom. First the NDP has to work with what was left to them. The highest per capita debt for any territory in the Americas including California's . Nova Scotia less then one million people owning 14 billion dollars California with over 30 million people owning 168 billion. You don't have to have an economics degree to see the problem that started with 1 billion dollars poured into a steel plant in Sydney, Billions in liabilities for pension of civil servants. Californian School Boards are dealing with budget pressure with a unique solution that saves 90 percent of the power requirements for computer labs and my company has approached Nova Scotian Schools without much success with this technology. The price of energy in going up . It has to be a huge factor for this district with 12000 computers ? 4million computer seats for K-12 education in America are this technology . Globally this is adopted on mass for school districts all experiencing the same economic pressures. Our problem in Atlantic Canada is not listening and learning for outside

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  A Mom who can't understand this

  - January 13th, 2011 at 10:29:31

  To "Do Much More With Less" Your solutions for this problem comes from your company, great to know you are looking out for someone - I personally am looking out for my child. The one person who might one day be running your company or this province providing he gets the education he needs to do just that. I can understand making cuts to try to improve the provincial situation - but why bother investing into projects like the Civic Center if they don't even have the money to invest into children - you know the little people who are 'supposily' going to benefit the most from it. I know a little about making cuts and stretching budgets, but its amusing how they want to cut the educational budget but not the number of government expenses that are filed each year, or a small reduction into their fluffy paycheques: the same pay they no doubt use to send their children to private schools for the ideal education, the same pay we tax payers are giving them. And for the record -- this Nova Scotia (a province), we reside in Canada, not in America want to throw facts out there try using some from the contienent of which we belong to. Not facts based on where you or your compnay is from.

A mom who can't understand this....

- January 13th, 2011 at 07:55:36

This is why the NDP does not serve any province well -- a 22 percent budget cut in the Educational system, who's brillant idea was this now. Are we really looking to boost this province as the one with the most youth delinquents in the entire country. Or this is one of those stupid political tactics the NDP are using to try to turn everyone against the Federal PC government. For petes sakes -- this the future of our society, our population you are playing with here, no one lives forever so why is it this current NS government think they are going to do just that, have you discovered some fountain of youth you are are hiding and keeping to yourselves. As a mother of a child who is most likely to be one of the unfortunate ones to lose the extra educational tools he needs to learn such as his EA, his speech therapist, access to theLearning Centre, etc etc. I am shocked that this is even being considered, and I for one will not allow my child to fall behind because of the stupidity and lack of respect this government has for our children. I will pull my child from the public education system and enroll him into a private instituation or hire a educator to teach him at home, at least then I will know my hard earned money will be going where it needs to --- my child's education. For a so called option to get NS out of debt, I'd say for the sake of our children, leave it alone, and lets learn to live with this debt, hell we have been for quite some time now as it is why worry about making damaging changes now.

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