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| Original News Release |
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| Original News Release |
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The B.C. government is helping students do better by:
· Focusing on improving results, expanding school choice and increasing parental involvement.
· Increasing funding from $6,328 per student in 2001/02 to a projected $6,733 by 2005/06 – another $405 per student.
· Increasing funding by $143 million to $5 billion over the next three years, despite declining enrolment.
· Investing $619 million in school capital projects across B.C. over the next three years to provide modern, safe facilities for students.
· Creating school planning councils that ensure students’ needs are identified and clear goals are set for improvement.
· Allowing parents to file written complaints about a teacher’s conduct directly with the college of teachers.
· Providing students with more school choices: starting this September, new open school boundaries will provide students and parents the freedom to choose any school in the province, provided there is space.
· Guaranteeing the right of parents to volunteer in their children’s schools.
· Putting in place a new graduation program that will allow more courses to count toward graduation – including more innovative locally developed courses.
· Enshrining in legislation class size limits for Kindergarten to Grade 3 and district-wide class size averages for Grades 4 through 12.
· Holding school boards to account for improved results through annual satisfaction surveys, accountability contracts and district reviews.
B.C.’s school system has:
· 60 school districts with about 1,700 public schools and 346 independent schools.
· About 570,000 students enrolled in public school and nearly 63,000 students enrolled in independent schools.
· About 31,300 teachers and 2,600 administrators.
· School districts report that enrolment declined by nearly 2,800 students in 2001/02, and more than 7,900 students in 2002/03; districts project enrolment will drop by another 9,100 students in 2003/04.
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