UCDSB Trustees Pass Balanced Budget for 2024-2025 School Year

Executive Superintendent of Business Services Jeremy Hobbs presented the 2024-2025 draft budget for deliberation and approval by Trustees.

For compliance purposes, the budget includes revenues of $447 million (a $28.9 million or 6.9 per cent increase over 2023-24 compliance revenues of $418.1 million), expenses of $446.6 million with a projected year-end surplus of $0.4 million.

The balanced budget for 2024-2025 has no cuts to the instructional services already provided in the 2023-24 school year and includes provisions for new and ongoing initiatives.

Also included in the budget is $52.1 million for capital improvements to school facilities, an increase of 15 per cent to the Special Education budget compared to 2023-24, fully funded remedy payments from Bill 124, more positive transportation funding, and appropriate measures for managing financial risk in-year.

Hobbs noted that this budget will allow the UCDSB to continue to deliver high quality instruction to students and continue to improve and upgrade facilities while still developing strategies to mitigate long-term financial risks.

Trustees voted and approved the budget. It will now be sent to the Ministry of Education for final approval.

Director’s Work Plan Status Update

Director of Education Ron Ferguson presented Trustees with the final update for the 2023-2024 Director’s Work Plan (DWP), sharing that all actions have either reached a milestone, are ongoing or have been completed.

The five areas of focus and goals of the DWP are as follows:

Reading: Ensure that students know how to read.

Student Culture: Enhance student mental health and physical health, and sense of belonging.

Real-World Learning: Engage students, staff, and community partners to engage in real-world learning and enhanced pathways.

Graduation Rate/Student Success: Improve student success to attain, and maintain, a 90% grad rate.

Staff Culture: Ensure that staff feels supported by the district in their work and have the resources they need to be successful.

Reading - The UCDSB completed the goal of purchasing new resources and using data to track progress and evaluate strategies, of enhancing collaboration between schools and ensuring all schools have access to corrective reading resources. Milestones were also reached with providing staff with Science of Reading professional development.

Student Culture - All goals were completed and milestones reached in this area, which include: enhancing peer-to-peer support of mental health through the expanded delivery of SafeTalk and expanding mental health resources in all schools; developing and implementing a twice-annual school climate survey to support data-driven plans to improve mental health and wellness; enhancing student connectiveness by offering pre-school programming and expanding the representation of the experiences of a wider range of students in class discussions, experiences, learning material and activities.

Real-World Learning (RWL) - All goals were completed and some on-going in the next school year. The UCDSB provided professional development on RWL, launched the UCDSB Grows initiative, which focuses on growing food and addresses food insecurities in communities, created numerous partnerships in the community to enhance apprenticeship pathways and expand SHSM programming. The implementation of Technology and Trades throughout the district for grades 7-12 started and is on-going.

Graduation rate / Student Success – This area also saw all items completed or milestones reached. This included the roll out of SST Lift in all secondary schools, expanding and modernizing course offerings and delivery for adult students at TR Leger, enhancing course offerings for Indigenous students to support graduation and post-secondary pathways, and active engagement year-five secondary students to ensure graduation.

Staff Culture – Milestones were reached in this area with enhancing timely and effective responses by central staff to the district, expanding opportunities for staff to be engaged in leadership and succession planning through staff PD opportunities. The roll out and encouragement of a social recognition program was completed as well as the strategy to distribute more items electronically, such as report cards, to reduce staff workload and increase ease of access for parents/guardians. The UCDSB began to gather feedback from staff through ‘pulse’ surveys, and this is on-going.

A draft of next year’s Director’s Work Plan was provided to trustees, and the final version of the plan will be shared at the final board meeting on June 19.

Trustee Innovation Award (TIA) Recipients

Trustee Corina Parisien, Chair of Trustee Innovation Award Committee announced the 2023-24 TIA recipients. These awards are given to individuals within the UCDSB who demonstrate innovative teaching and work practices. The goal is to incorporate these practices and methods into the educational system, improving the delivery of education and enhancing services that benefit both the school and the community.

The 2023-24 individual award winners are as follows:

Shauna Burton – Teacher, Caldwell Street Elementary School

Shannon Campbell – Teacher, Athens District High School

Scott Currie – Teacher, North Dundas District High School

Kellyanne MacKenzie – Teacher, Thousand Islands Secondary School

Dan Tremblay – Teacher, Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute

The 2023-24 group award winners are as follows:

Mary-Kaye McGreevy – Intensive Support Teacher, All UCDSB Schools

Lori Taylor – Human Rights Equity Lead, All UCDSB Schools

Joel Exner – Teacher, North Dundas District High School

Colleen Leslie – Teacher, Seaway District High School

Erin Ritchie – Teacher, St. Lawrence Secondary School

Isaac Chapman – Teacher, Perth & District Collegiate Institute

Dean Fournier – Principal, Perth & District Collegiate Institute

Monica Taylor - Teacher, Perth & District Collegiate Institute

Dominique Bertrand – Principal, Russell District High School

Abigail Fawcett – Teacher, Russell District High School

Breanna Bedor – Teacher, Smiths Falls District Collegiate Institute

Terry Gardiner – Principal, Smiths Falls District Collegiate Institute

Ewen McIntosh – Principal, Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute

Randi Tollhurst – Teacher, Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute

These individuals and groups will be formally recognized at the Board Celebration Evening on June 10.