How do you want schools’ surplus to be spent?
That question was posed during Tuesday’s School District 57 (SD57) debate to trustee nominees Sarah Holland and Stephanie Mikalishen-Deol.
Holland, who is a financial planner by trade, believes staff training could be the most important issue in need of extra funds.
“That’s something that can benefit the staff now, that benefits the students now, that benefits the students of tomorrow by providing that sort of training,” she explains.
This was countered later by Mikalishen-Deol, who brought up the point of what happens when the money is no longer available.
“We generally don’t want to use [surplus dollars] for staffing because it’s not sustainable. I do think there is something to be said about program supports, having some now is still better than none.”
Something along the lines of directly helping students is what Mikalishen-Deol would prefer to spend surplus money on. She notes mental health as one example.
“Following not-for-profits in the [United States], a lot of them working in summer camps, for example, are actually moving towards having every single one of their staff having mental health first aid. I think that’s a great example of maybe something that we want to look at.”
Holland did not shy away from the idea of using surplus dollars for something directly affecting students. One pressing issue both the current and future Board of Trustees face is capacity. Holland believes this could be something to address.
“We’ve got capacity issues at some schools. Is this money that could be used to purchase things such as portables?”
SD 57 had $48,513,929 in surplus for 2018. Nearly two million of that was accumulated since last year.
General Voting Day is Saturday, October 20th.
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