The province has announced the money it will allocate to schools in Simcoe County, so now local school boards can get to work finalizing their 2021/22 budgets.
On Wednesday afternoon, Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey, Barrie-Innisfil MPP Andrea Khanjin and Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop announced local funding amounts for Grants for Student Needs, which is funding for the operation of publicly-funded schools across Ontario.
According to the announcement, the Simcoe County District School Board will receive $625.2 million for the 2021/22 school year. This is an increase of $12 million in funding over last year.
“Staff are working through the technical papers right now. There’s no one area where we’re getting a large or massive amount of money,” said public board chair and Orillia/Severn/Ramara trustee Jodi Lloyd. “From what we’re seeing it’s a bunch of little increases here and there.”
“We’ll be starting into the budget in June and we’ll be getting updates then as staff works through it. It can be very complicated. We have staff who work through it for days going through the amounts,” she said.
Grants for Student Needs are calculated based on a variety of factors, but are mostly tied to student enrolment. While Lloyd said many publicly-funded school boards saw a slight dip in enrolment this past year mainly attributable to the pandemic, it is unclear at this point if that factored into the amounts promised through the Grants for Student Needs funding.
The Grants for Student Needs funding pays for school board operating costs which can include expenses such as utility costs, staff and teacher salaries. It does not include capital costs, which cover new schools and builds.
As part of the announcement, the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board will receive $267.4 million, an increase of $5.5 over 2020-2021.
The Ontario government is also providing an increase of $5.7 million to CS Viamonde, and an increase of $3.4 million to CS Catholique MonAvenir.
Total Grants for Student Needs funding across the province is projected to be $25.6 billion.
“Today’s announcement is terrific news for hard-working families and students in Simcoe County,” said Downey in the announcement. “Our government is committed to advancing student success, and we are delivering significant resources here in our community and across the province to help young people reach their full potential.”
“Our students and youth are our community’s future leaders, and we must do all that we can to ensure that they are provided with a safe and healthy environment to learn, grow and flourish,” said Khanjin.
“We are committed to ensuring the best learning environment for our students, and will continue to support those students whose learning and mental health have been disrupted by COVID-19,” said Dunlop.
