Photo: Castanet

Funds to cover inflation, measures to recruit staff to rural schools and improved support worker retention were among some of the advocacy priorities for the Kamloops-Thompson school district in meetings with five area MLAs.

The SD73 board met with MLAs Peter Milobar, Ward Stamer, Lorne Doerkson, Tony Luck and Rosalyn Bird at the beginning of February to review advocacy priorities.

Among the board of education’s priorities include advocating for more work hours and higher wages to recruit and retain certified education assistants and decrease absenteeism — the district’s “greatest cost pressure.”

“You have the premier that’s made an election promise that there would be a teacher assistant in every classroom from K to grade three, yet we’re not seeing that in terms of funding envelopes or supports coming to the schools,” Milobar told Castanet Kamloops.

He said part of the advocacy efforts would be to allow districts more flexibility to determine where best to assign teaching assistants based on class composition.

Earlier this year, SD73 paused a plan to put unqualified educational assistants into classrooms to cover certified education assistant absences.

In the 2024-25, SD73 saw no increase to per student funding to cover increased costs for transportation, maintenance, employee benefits, among others. SD73 says inflationary pressures have pushed costs by approximately 58 per cent to 77 per cent since 2020.

SD73 and the MLAs are advocating for the province to increase per student funding to keep pace with inflation.

“Those cost pressures have been mounting, and they’re not seeing a commensurate change in funding from the government, and it’s kind of catching up to them,” Milobar said.

“At a time when schools are stretched more than ever, they’re not seeing the help and the support from the provincial government.”

Advocacy priorities for the school district and MLAs also include funding for a new elementary school in Batchelor Heights and a secondary school in Aberdeen.

SD73 received a crown grant approval for the school in Batchelor Heights after two catchment changes to manage overcapacity in the last five years. The south west sector in Kamloops is significantly over capacity and it says it can’t rely on portables or catchment changes to solve the space crunch.

“The speed that the education ministry and infrastructure ministry move at approving and actually identifying money doesn’t sync up to the initial announcement,” Milobar said.

“A lot of kids will be through the school system by the time some of these schools they say they support building will actually even be built. It's simply not good enough.”

A new Aberdeen secondary school is SD73’s top capital priority.

Another priority for the board is a permanent measure to address rural recruitment needs through provincial negotiations between BCPSEA and employee unions and associations to differentiate pay for staff positions in rural areas.

Milobar said the MLAs and board of education are looking for more flexibility “built into the system” to tackle challenges for rural school.

“Are there travel allowances possible? Where’s the budgetary difference for that? Is there hiring incentives that can happen, wage differentials that can happen, all those types of things,” he said.