1139 Lunsdate Avenue North Vancouver, B.C. PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (191) Chris Johnson Operations Manager 995-2131 (166) Doug Foot Comptroller 985-2131 (733) Sates & tharketing Director ~ Managing Editor . 980-0511 (319) - 85-2131 (778). Classified Manager ) 986-6222 (202) -. Jonathan Beil Production Manager SO5-2181 (127) nas ced te zphonelines: ine .- Distribution Manager’ 986-1337 (124) $b ‘han North Shore Naws, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore, Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No, 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. Be Entire contents a, K * ©1995 North Shore th Free Press LU. ia f contin All tights reserved. teed hite Funding funda N OCT. 8 North Shore News story illustrates who is really get- ting the most out of local educa: tion: school district staff. Wages. and benefits now consume 91% of North Vancouver Schoo! District 44’s $100 million operating budget. That school district is currently fac- ing a $2.6 million budget deficit. ‘Parents and others interested in the quality of local ‘education want to know why, They should consider. that: Both instruction and administration in the district are over budget. 85% of District 44’s $82 million budget at the beginning of this decade. The current’ North | Vancouver Teachers’ Association contract with District 44 includes such contract claus- es as sick Jeave that accrues at 1.5 days per month and can be banked by teach- ers for future use; five non-instructional and two community interaction (also non-instructional) days; public funding for teachers union negotiation teams; continuing to pay teachers and staff who have been charged with job-related crimes. ‘Teachers work a maximum of 195 A SAPD NOL ROT RNa VATE wieew pealyat entalis professional (non-instructional) days, and, in North Vancouyer,.are paid between $32,263 and $63,872 annually. And the reasons behind the growing cost of education become evermore apparent. Teachers and other school district staff should be paid well and earn a good living. Theirs is an extremely important and challenging job, but, somewhere: along the line the resources invested: in..our education system have been largely diverted from reaching: those who_ should be receiving the buik of its bene- : fits: the stusents. Wages and benefits accounted for Me cart See aivan ring: the Conuc I HEARTILY agree with many of the criticisms of teacher contracts raised last week by Dave Jamieson of North Vancouver. Now, Mr. Jamieson, would you kindly keep your opinions to your- self? Iam married to a teacher. And if you think 1 am going to risk matri- monial retribution by piping up in public about the cosy contracts teachers have signed, you are in grave error. "And not only matrimonial retri- ' bution, which can take many painful forms. | am also wary of inciting the public to wrath over those contracts. A more stringent deal would not go over well in this household. It would certainly be against our family self-interest. ’ Frankly, Mr. Jamieson, we need the money. i , It is easy for you'to slam the rich contracts for teachers that doubtless figured in North Vancouver School District 44’s “out of control” spend- ing, as characterized by North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA David Schreck. District 44 is $2.6 million in the hole, which is a legal no-no, since deficit financing for operating bud- | gets is permitted only for federal | and provincial governments — not for mere municipalities and school boards. Now, be fair. District 44's cur- rent operating budget is (take a deep breath) $97.7 million. So the board’s cheque-writers are roughly 3% over budget. If Ottawa and Victoria had run that close to the line in their budgets of the last cou- ple of decades, there'd be dancing in the streets every night. The board’s chairman, Barbara MacLellan, is given the delightful role of being left publicly holding the bag. What a fun job. ‘The reality is that school board chairmen have very little control, being here-today- gone-tomorrow parish politicians acting as polite democratic fronts _for the actual power-wiclders — the : eareer top administrators and the mighty teachers’ unions. TL agree with Mr. Jamieson, even”. atthe risk of severe mistreatment \~ days per year in B.C., which includes by my wife — who teaches in i - Vancouver —- that some of the con- “ tract provisions are as fatasa Thanksgiving turkey. Like the five annual non-teaching (“profession- al") days, the banking of sick leave days, the early retirement formula. Enviable? Sure. Sincerity test for teacher-bashers: Would you virtu- ously reject such benefits if offered them? Now, in defence of teachers. (Pause for further declaration of interest: Not only is my wife a teacher, my eldest son is a- University of Toronto chemistry professor who's won three national awards in the last year or two. Brilliant lad. [t’s obviously genetic. And some of my best friends ... you know the rest.) You've heard all about what a soft job teaching is — those short (classroom). hours, the long vaca- ions. Get real, friend, as the saying goes. Any dad who's had to enter- tain/instruct his own children for just a couple of hours should have a pretty good idea of how demanding it is to teach a class of 25 — and with all the tears, tantrums and in some cases horrifically sad stories from the home that go with it, i's a universal phenomenon: Everyone speaks darkly of the venality and cynicism of doctors, lawyers, teachers and so on — and of the failed systems behind them. - But how do you rate your doc- YORER allo | A sad day ; I was saddened, to: learn that one” of our mors’ progressive municipal: councillors, Janice‘ Harris’ (North: Vancouver District), has been bullied off the Greater Vancouver. Regional District's water committee. bet It is a sad day in. Greater; Vancouver when true democracy is eroded due to “sloppy and unfair ‘chairing of those meetings,” particu-., larly when Harris is one of the few. » councillors that ‘actually elevates community ‘issues on_.a: long-term holistic basis rather than mere short. term economic number crunching... ‘ We can only. pray that North Vancouver. District Mayor Murray. ;Dykeman’ will