Hello fellow educators, its podcast number 106. Last month a flurry of emails went around to both public and independent schools addressing a bold and controversial move from  the School District 79 Trustees for the Cowichen Valley region. As a response to fiscal and public pressures the Trustees passed this controversial resolution "That BCSTA request the Province of BC to redirect the public money spent on private education to public education system starting with this upcoming Provincial budget." The BCSTA is the British Columbia School Trustees Association which unites and brings together Trustees from all over the Province to support the District Trustees as well as create a united voice to the Provincial government. The BCSTA will meet in just two weeks to discuss and vote on this plus twenty two other motions.  So what are we to make of this and does this put Independent School funding at risk?

First, for those who listen to the podcast outside of British Columbia, it is important to explain that in Western Canada Independent private schools receive partial funding. It varies from Province to Province but in BC we have two levels of funding that are measured against the level of funding that is given to each school district in the Province. So a school in any district receives either 50% or 35% of what District 23 receives from the Provincial Government for its public school operating expenses. Which level of funding we receive, the 50% or the 35% is determined by our own schools operating budget. Essentially the richer Independent Prep schools receive the 35% but most independent schools are receiving the 50% funding. Where the school is located can also make a big difference. There are areas of the Province that receive substantial funding differences because of the remote nature of their location. One other significant point about funding in BC is that Independent Schools receive no capital grants. This means that any and all buildings are paid for by the independent schools and the organizations that run them, whereas, all public school facilities are paid for by the Province in combination with the local municipal and regional governments. In most cases the local government provides the land and the provincial government pays for the buildings.

Heritage Christian Schools is a Church run school system and the Kelowna Christian Center Society has provided both the land we are located on now and the initial buildings we constructed back in 1989 for our campus school. But like most independent schools we have had to factor in our newer buildings into the school budgets. Our schools last year received 50% of what public schools in District 23 received which worked out to be about $7200 per student. Heritage received $3600 per student.

This money doesn't come without strings attached. Our schools have to follow the general BC Educational plan. This means that we must meet the same educational objectives that all students in a BC schools must meet. The curriculum  objectives are called the Provincial Learning Outcomes or the PLO's which determine the general content, scoop and sequence  of each subject. Our Grade 4 and 7 students must participate in Province wide Foundational Skills Assessment tests, the FSA's. Our high school students must take the same five Provincial exams that all other schooled students in the Province take. We have to follow the same policies as our public counterparts in record keeping, health and safety in our schools and we can only hired teachers who have been certified either by the BC College of Teachers or the Independent School branch of the government. Independent schools go through frequent inspections to ensure that our schools are in compliance with these requirements. Our campus school has a full evaluation every six years and a monitoring visit every other three years and our online schools must go through this inspection every two years and monitored on the alternating year.

Within these provisions Independent schools are allowed to bring their unique bias to the BC educational program. We can and are encouraged to teach the PLO's with a religious perspective and we can add to the Provincial learning outcomes our point of view. Public schools are restricted by the Provincial School Act to teach any religious perspective in the classroom. Independent schools are able to be more creative with how their programs are administered because our year is measured in hours of instruction not in actual days of instruction. Our only hiring restriction is that our teachers must be certified with BC College of Teachers or the Independent School branch. Therefore we can be much more selective in our hiring. At Heritage we are able to apply our religious bias and only hire evangelicals teachers. Also the Independent teacher certification has given us additional freedom enabling many of our staff who are not as formally trained as the BC College teachers to teach one or two subjects in our schools. In our campus school our Automotive teacher did not go through the formal teacher training programs. We have teachers in many or our subjects such as science, math, bible, the electives who do not have the BCCT certification.

A big area of difference is that our own school boards in independent schools have much more responsibility in the governance of our schools as compared to our local public School Boards. The public school boards essentially are responsible to oversee the district Superintendents, the various aspects of the school budgets, where schools are located and how they are divided. They are to ensure that the BC education program is being followed but they have little say in how schools can deviate or add to that program. Every few years the Kelowna Christian Center Society must review and sign an agreement with the Provincial Government to ensure compliance within our partnership. The public school boards are not in a similar partnership. They don't have the authority to say no, we don't want to receive funding this year we want to go an entirely different direction with our schools. Obviously or Society structure allows for that. They also don't have the authority to determine teacher compensation, classroom sizes and many other aspects of the working relationship between them and the employees of a given school district. Nearly all of these issues are determined by the Provincial government as they are the key negotiator with the Teacher Union and Employee Unions. The BC Teacher's Federation has become a key stakeholder in how budgets are being administered in schools. Because salaries constitute the lion's share of any school budget, essentially the school districts hands are tied with most of the operational funding coming to their region. In the last collective bargaining the Union successfully curtailed class sizes so this forces Public Districts to hire enough teachers to ensure those limits are not violated. The teacher's union has taken a stance against funding independent schools in BC this has meant that our schools have been free from the influence of the BCTF or the desire for our teachers to unionize. We are indirectly affected though, because the BCTF sets the standard for teacher pay and benefits which we are always measured by in our independent schools.

I was a director of the Society when Heritage started its partnership with the Provincial government back in 1990. At the time we were a small ACE school and only received 10% funding with very few strings attached. I remember looking at all the implications of entering into this partnership. We had to give up most of our beloved ACE curriculum and adopt different approaches towards more teacher led schooling. We had to find certified teachers and we had to submit to government inspections every couple of years. I remember being very cautious and a bit suspicious of this government insertion into our special Christian environment.  My American sensibilities were somewhat pricked because of this union of government and the deeply religious environment we wanted to build for our school. I said to the board that we will have to evaluate this relationship very closely and if it changes who we are significantly we will have to find a way to give the funding back or discontinue it. Six years later I became the Pastor of Christian Education and the Superintendent to our school. I must say that we have become a far more effective school as a result of both the funding and the government standards in our school both in our curriculum and the quality of our educators. The inspection teams have insisted that we maintain our autonomy in our approach towards the Christian worldview in the curriculum, in fact they have encouraged it. We are blessed to be in one of the very few regions of the world here in Western Canada that receives funding for Christian schools and in my travels it has clearly given us an edge in our movement. Our school doesn't need to charge exorbitant tuition rates in order to stay afloat. Our teacher's salaries, by comparison are much better than similar schools in the US or eastern Canada. We are accredited by one of the best educational jurisdictions in the world according to the PISA statistics,  United Nations school evaluation program. Yet we maintain a deeply spiritual environment where discipleship is still the main emphasis of our educational programs. I can attest without reservation that we are far better schools today because of this relationship and in every way the government has lived up to its side of the bargain. Our schools are richer, safer, healthy, stronger and even more spiritual motivated because of this relationship.

Losing Provincial funding would be devastating to our campus school especially to our lower income families who would not be able to afford this type and standard of Christian Education. It would mean the potential demise of our present operations of our Distributed Learning programs. Both Heritage Christian Online School and BC Online School would have to completely alter our approach to schooling as we rely almost completely on Government funding to provide for the 1550 full time DL students and the 3000 part time students. Neither of these programs charge any tuition to BC residents. I am the first to admit that our relationship with our Provincial government has become essential to the way we operate our schools today. We see this as a clear means in which God has provided for our schools and we work hard to cultivate our relationship with the government.

So what is the impact of this school district bringing this resolution to the floor of the BCSTA on April 22nd? I would suggest very little in the short term. It will most likely be defeated and remember that it is just a motion to recommend to the government that they change the school act. Does this group carry weight with the government? Marginally, yes. They are, in fact, the local politicians who are directly administering the policies for public education in their region.  I would suggest that they have a voice which is equally as loud and clear as the BC Teachers Federation, our teachers union, which has also opposed funding for Independent schools.

So why are these motions coming forth? Because they are the key stake holders for public education. It makes perfect sense that they would oppose funding independent schools because we are not under their governance nor are our teachers part of the union. Their main argument outlined in motion is: "The 'choice' to pay tuition for private education provides a financial stream of support available to non-public education, which public education does not have." Because independent schools are able to charge tuition then they should not be receiving funds from the BC tax base according to their argument. They have struggled in understanding the unique place that Independent schools have occupied in BC these last 30 years of funding. We now enrol 11% of the students in our province. This number has grown from 8% ten years ago and though the number students going to independent schools has levelled off in recent years. The school districts are experiencing a declining enrolment. Which, in effect, means that independent schools are growing in comparison to public education. We are maintaining while they are declining. This translates into real dollars for schools as Education funding is tied directly to the student populations. As the student population declines we are facing more and more school closers around the Province as well as less jobs for teachers. School Trustees have to make these very difficult decisions year after year and the teacher's union has potentially less members. So part of their strategy is to look at changing the role that independent schools play in our Province. Thus they are lobbying the government to take away these funds and as they say in their motion, "... to redirect the public money spent on private education to public education system starting with this upcoming Provincial budget ".

This would not be without ramifications to the Provincial government, the taxpayer and their own system. It is no small thing for our government to alter the direction of 30 years of funding that has benefited 11% of its constituency. That number is probably larger because of past and future tax payers who plan to use the Independent schools for their children. They have no electoral mandate to make this change, nor, I would submit, that they have no political will in the halls of the legislature.  Many in the present government have been staunch supporters of the present system both pragmatically and philosophically. It just doesn't make fiscal sense to deny the funding. Much of the growth of independent schools has been because of the funding. If you remove the funding then most of the schools would decline significantly if not close altogether. We would not be able to run our Distributed Learning Online school without that funding. This would mean that 1550 of our full time students and 3000 of our cross enrolled students would return to the public funded programs doubling the amount that the Province would have to fund in a public school.   Our online school alone would add $7,000,000 to the provincial budget. Presently there are 69,476 students enrolled in Independent schools. I would suggest that this number would drop in half if all funding was removed which would add over $130 million dollars to the Provincial budget. Yes the school boards would get that money but this would be added to the tax payers' pockets.  There would also be a crisis of space for these 30,000 something students entering the public schools. Yes there are school closers and they would reopen but these closures are not necessarily in the right locations. Where public schools are closing so also are independent schools. In some regions such as Surrey and Kelowna our schools would instantly experience significant overcrowding issues. This would cost the government more money as they build more classrooms and schools which would add significantly to that $130 million dollar increase. There are presently 347 independent schools. Considering that each school has approximately 50 people on staff, on average, this shift would put approximately 8000 people out of work. Some of the teachers would be able to transfer but there are long waiting lists to teach in most districts. Pragmatically is should make no sense to a politician to change the funding structure and the School District Trustees need to think deeply about such issues. Let's not forget that many of our present politicians in Victoria support the spiritual and competitive role independent schools play in our school system.

Next week I want to continue this topic and specifically give suggestions of what we can do to protect independent school funding? How should we lobby our school boards and our MLA's? What are the best arguments for funding Independent schools?

Please email us your comments and thoughts on this podcast. Also, if you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book or send you the download link for the audio version of, Discipling This Generation for a Digital World, simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address. Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.