New Brunswick’s seven school districts are receiving more money from the province amid cuts to dozens of support staff.
However, the education minister said the extra funding does not mean those cuts by school districts will be reversed.
“You’ll have to ask them what they’re planning to do, but to my knowledge, no, there were no plans to bring them back,” Claire Johnson told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“We’re really looking at having the resources close to the classroom with regards to literacy and numeracy.”
The department announced Thursday that it had reallocated an additional $14.6 million to the school districts for the current fiscal year.
It comes just weeks after districts were told by the province that they had to reallocate $43 million in their budgets back into classrooms.
That prompted the Anglophone South and Anglophone West school districts to eliminate all of their library staff positions, and the Francophone South School District to cut 25 support staff positions.
RELATED: Anglophone South eliminates school library workers
But other districts, like Anglophone East, said they would find the savings through attrition and no jobs would be lost.
Johnson said it will be up to each individual district to decide what they will do with the extra funding.
“We are working in collaboration with them. We recognize their expertise and we trust those types of decisions,” said the minister.
“Our directive to the districts was to ensure that we’re stabilizing the classroom. We want the resources to be where the students are. That’s what we’ve been hearing from teachers, from parents and from the students themselves.”
The Anglophone South School District will receive the biggest total at nearly $3.5 million, followed by Anglophone West at $3 million, Anglophone East at $2.5 million and Francophone South at $2 million.
Johnson was unable to provide specifics on how much extra money each district had asked for but said it was “very close” to what the province gave them.
“The feedback I’ve gotten so far from the districts is that they’re satisfied with what we’re proposing, so I’m confident moving forward.”
