New Westminster students and families will have a chance to share their opinions on the school district’s 2021/22 budget this spring.
School trustees will have a board session about the coming year’s budget on April 6; after that, plans will go out for public feedback.
Secretary-treasurer Bettina Ketcham, reporting to trustees at the Feb. 9 operations committee meeting, said the district’s focus this year is on making sure that the budget process centres on the district’s strategic plan and the priorities laid out in that plan. She noted the district wants to make sure it engages with stakeholders in a “meaningful” way about those plans.
She suggested the district can use a number of different strategies for engagement, including a survey via the ThoughtExchange idea-sharing forum, a student symposium and a virtual equivalent of the “talking tables” dinner meetings it has held in the past.
Trustees recommended virtual meetings be made as focused as possible, with separate sessions for different stakeholder groups, such as employee groups, students and families.
“I’m recognizing that a lot of our community is suffering from Zoom burnout, so the more precise and targeted and relevant we can make these, the better they’re going to go,” trustee Anita Ansari said. “I would really appreciate having targeted, precise, direct engagements because I feel like people have hit their capacity on what they can participate in passively. So we just have to ask the right questions and ask them in a meaningful, deliberate, precise manner.”
FOCUSED FEEDBACK
Trustee Mark Gifford said it’s important to let stakeholders know what strategic priorities the board has already identified so it can get feedback from those groups about ways to move forward on those priorities.
Superintendent Karim Hachlaf agreed public engagement meetings should have a focused agenda. He said staff would use the meetings to guide a discussion about the district’s strategic priorities – such as climate action, anti-racism, the ongoing inclusive education review and the implementation of a “wellness centre” in the new neighbourhood learning centre at New Westminster Secondary School.
Providing information to stakeholders about those priorities in advance would help the district to get more focused feedback, he said.
“I think it’s going to be a really exciting change in having that kind of dialogue, even if it’s virtual,” he said.
Board chair Gurveen Dhaliwal said it will be valuable to hear from the public about the district’s specific strategic priorities.
“For example, if our priority is climate action, what are some of the operational pieces that require funding, and then which one of those are important, and which of those can we do next year or the year after, or whatever it might be?” she said.
Hachlaf said stakeholders will also be able to provide feedback about the budget at board meetings, as they have in the past.
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