New Brunswick’s education minister says more funding for schools could be in the cards, as multiple districts have announced staffing cuts.
Some school districts have said they had no choice but to eliminate support staff positions after receiving less provincial funding than needed.
Minister Claire Johnson says the support staff cuts were not what she had in mind when the provincial government asked districts to “redirect” $43 million from their budgets.
“We were hoping that it was going to be cuts at the district level, like travel or meetings. More administrative, bureaucratic things,” she said.
“Because what we wanted with this exercise was to redirect resource[s] back into the classrooms and back into the schools.”
Instead, multiple districts eliminated positions such as library workers.
Johnson says her team has been meeting with the districts to talk about the cuts and understand what can be done to readjust.
She refuses to call the “redirection” of funds a budget cut — something that has drawn widespread criticism.
“We’re asking them to redirect, rethink, reinvest, so it’s not a cut,” she said.
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