The BC School Trustees Association Provincial Council (PC) met on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver.

PC is a BCSTA governance meeting held three times per year when representatives from boards of education across the province gather to provide advocacy direction to the Association between annual general meetings.

Fourteen regular motions and five late motions were passed. View the disposition of motions and the meeting agenda.

1. President's report

In her report, BCSTA Connie Denesiuk reported on activities including:

• BCSTA's intense advocacy work in response to "the serious impacts of the loss of funding grants and other financial challenges that boards across BC are facing."
• The 2009-10 Strategic Priorities established by the Board of Directors: support boards of education in their key work of improving achievement for all learners; strengthen government and public commitment to public education; and, enhance the value of each board's membership in BCSTA.
• BCSTA's presentation to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Education, urging sufficient funding for public education.
• Successful advocacy on the issue of school lands ownership in response to motions that had gone to the Union of BC Municipalities' recent AGM.

There was a question after Connie's report on whether the land disposal issue would come back before UBCM. Connie replied that at its AGM, UBCM instructed its executive to meet with our executive: "I don’t expect it will come back." Connie cited former trustee, now Councillor, Cheryl Ashlie for her eloquence at the UBCM meeting on the importance of those elected to serve students having the ability to make decisions on school properties.

Read more in Connie's full report.

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2. Executive Director's report

On behalf of Executive Director Stephen Hansen, President Connie Denesiuk reported that:

• Staff is intently focusing on increasing the value of boards’ membership in BCSTA at this economically challenging time: the value comes from both direct and indirect assistance
• Just two examples of direct assistance are facilitations, and legal and policy advice by General Counsel Judith Clark
• Indirect benefits harder to quantify: as significant example is BCSTA's unprecedented funding advocacy over the past months. Since May, BCSTA has been referenced over 200 times in newspapers; radio and TV interviews.
• We stay effective locally if we're connected provincially. To that end, BCSTA keeps members up to date through the weekly e-Digest, Education Leader, e-Alert and more; and social media tools such as Twitter.
• The December 3-5 Academy will feature Carla Qualtrough, paralympian and human rights lawyer; BC Representative for Children and Youth Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond; and a wide array of sessions and workshops.
• BCSTA offers cost-effective pro-d online via Elluminate.

Read more in the Executive Director's full report.

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3. CSBA Director's report

President Connie Denesiuk, who is BCSTA's Canadian School Boards Association Director, reported on CSBA's work to refocus and realign to member expectations, including:

• Increased collaboration and sharing of information (trends, issues and strategies)
• In-person and electronic communications
• Advocacy on the national level, with the Council of Ministers of Education
• Work on issues such as copyright and the continuing advocacy for national children’s commissioner.

The goal is for CSBA to be a forum for discussion of issues across Canada. CSBA's office will be housed at a provincial association office rather than a stand-alone office in Ottawa, as before. The Quebec English School Boards Association will provide space. It's expected that a staff person will be in place before Christmas; not an executive director rather a person with communication and other coordination skills to assist the CSBA board. Connie reminded Provincial Councillors of the 2010 CSBA conference, July 7-9, 2010, in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Connie was asked what city the CSBA office would be in. Answer: Montreal. Aside from QESBA, "many of the provincial associations simply didn't have room," she explained.

Read Connie's full CSBA report.

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4. Education Committee report

Trustee Linda Van Alphen, giving the report on behalf of Education Committee Chair Linda McPhail, reported that:

• At its October 22-23 meeting, the Education Committee reviewed BCSTA Board Priorities Document, noting the alignment of the priorities to those of our membership.
• Communications Director Carolyn Baldridge presented on "Raising the Profile of the Education Committee."
• Board Director Diana Mumford reported on the ESL Consortium.
• There was support for providing a Committee booth at the December 3-5 Academy in Vancouver.
• The Committee is reviewing sections of the online Key Work Manual so that it can be revised and updated in time for Academy.
• There is a focus on improving meetings and branch member interactions.

Other topics covered: transportation, impact of social networking on student achievement, and school planning councils. Read the Education Committee's full report.

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5. Aboriginal Education Committee report

Aboriginal Education Committee Chair Tony Goulet reported that:

• The Committee will meet with the BCTF Aboriginal Education Committee in December, following a request by that committee.
• In a motion being finalized for AGM 2010, the Committee will ask that its members increase to eight, plus one Board of Directors representative, to be appointed by the President. The Committee members would liaise with branches and report back to the Board.
• The financial impact of the above should be mitigated by use of Elluminate for meetings, as not all members can attend all meetings.
• The advantages of the increased Committee membership include the ability to have a quorum; this is harder to achieve with a smaller committee.
• Guidelines have been developed for members: vision, meetings attendance, liaison roles. These will be finalized at their next meeting.
• The Committee has relayed concerns to the Board on insufficient funding by Indian and Northern Affairs for First Nations Status On-Reserve students.
• To save money, the Commitee will hold its next meeting at the December 2009 Academy in Vancouver, rather than at the February Provincial Council in Victoria.

Read more in the Aboriginal Education Committee's full report.

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6. Finance Committee report

Finance Committee Chair Melissa Hyndes presented Provincial Councillors with BCSTA’s 2008/2009 audited financial statements. Melissa explained, "The Provincial Council is being asked to receive them so they can be distributed to member boards. BCSTA’s auditors, D&H Group LLP Chartered Accountants, have given the Association an unqualified audit opinion, and having reviewed these statements, the Finance Committee and Board of Directors find them to be in order."

She added that BCSTA ended the year with a surplus of approximately $154,000. This surplus, the result of a combination of variables, is added to BCSTA’s Member Equity, also known as net assets. Read Melissa's full Finance Committee report.

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7. Legislative Committee report

Chair Jane Kellett reported that the Legislative Committee received 23 motions for this Provincial Council. Of these, several were on similar topics. "The Committee worked hard to find the appropriate balance of representing the intent of the individual motions while reducing redundancy.  After the committee’s review, we merged 14 of the motions into five and decided that one was not emergent.  Therefore, the Legislative Committee is recommending the 13 motions" before PC, Jane concluded.

According to BCSTA's bylaws, motions coming to PC must be of an emergent nature, where emergent is defined as “matters that if delayed until the AGM will impact negatively on boards’ ability to influence public policy or a public education issue.”

Read Jane's full Legislative Committee report.

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8. Deputy Minister Gorman addresses budget challenges for school districts

The budget cutbacks to boards of education reflect our severe economic times, BC's Deputy Minister told Provincial Councillors in his evening presentation October 23. James Gorman assured Councillors that the province is renewing its commitment to public education and will move ahead with full day kindergarten. Even in this strained economy, the government allots 70 percent of the provincial budget to health and education, he said.

Mr. Gorman provided an Education Ministry budget update:

• the Ministry spends more than $5 billion a year
• 88 percent of that is operating grants to BC's 60 school districts
• almost another five percent goes to other transfers
• five percent is operating grants to independent schools
• the balance goes to public library grants and Ministry operations.

The 2008-09 budget was $5.116 billion. In 2009-10, the budget has been reduced to $5.043 billion. In 2010-11, the budget will increase to $5.080 billion. The Deputy Minister noted that BC's revenue has fallen by $2 billion since February 2009; we've also suffered a 4.3 per cent drop in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By most indicators, though, the economy has hit bottom and should grow over the next two years.

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