The union representing support staff in the New Westminster school district is keeping the pressure on over cuts to clerical staff hours.
Dave Bollen, vice-president of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Local 409, spoke to trustees at the final school board meeting of the year, held June 23 via Webex.
Bollen came to reiterate concerns over cuts to secretarial staff hours at the Hume Park Home Learners program. CUPE Local 409 president Marcel Marsolais had appeared in front of the board at its May 26 meeting to voice concerns over cuts in administrative hours at Hume Park from 35 to 20 hours per week.
As Marsolais had in his earlier appearance, Bollen raised the question of whether it makes sense to cut clerical hours in light of the COVID-19 situation and the uncertainty surrounding schools in September.
“Considering we’re in a pandemic where almost 60% of the students are actually working from home at the moment, and with the uncertainty of September, I think it’s a time where we should be looking at strengthening the home learners program, not cutting half of the hours of the people that work there,” he said.
Bollen suggested the home learners program might become more popular this coming fall.
“This is an area where parents, when they feel uncomfortable with the system, will probably turn to come September if it goes in a negative direction, so I feel like we need to keep an eye on this moving forward, and if it ends up escalating in September, we really need to reinstate those hours,” he said.
The cuts to clerical staff hours were part of a number of “operational efficiencies” that the school board agreed to in its 2020/21 budget to help it overcome a shortfall stemming in large part from financial challenges surrounding COVID-19.
At a previous school board meeting, superintendent Karim Hachlaf told trustees that those efficiencies were found by looking across the district rather than as a “blanket set of cuts” or by targeting one employee group in particular.
The changes include reductions to administration, changes to clerical hours at elementary schools, and a shift in the teacher/librarian collaboration model amounting to 1.85 FTE (full-time equivalent) employees. In total, those savings amounted to just shy of $600,000.
