The state of contingency funding to the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic was explained to the board of trustees at their November board meeting on Wednesday.
Part of the funding for COVID expenses came from surplus or unused funding from last year from having schools shut down in March until the end of the school year, said Lisa Wonsiak, Chief Financial Officer for Holy Family, who noted they received a letter in May from the Ministry of Education asking for a report on what exactly those extra costs were or were going to be.
“We reported the costs to the ministry, and said what one-time purchases we’d use the funds for,” she said, adding that near the end of August the ministry indicated they had a $40 million fund for school divisions to cover COVID expenses for the reopening of schools, in addition to the $75 million fund from the federal government.
“They had a contingency fund available on an application basis. We applied and received approval. We received 60 per cent of what we applied for,” said Wonsiak, adding the application for the second phase of contingency funding has to be submitted to the ministry by Dec. 9.
Holy Family had received $275,000 which they committed towards one-time costs, cleaning and sanitizing supplies, and 28 per cent of this money was used by the end of August, with the remainder to be forwarded to the 2020-21 school year.
“We’ve spent 54 per cent of that surplus, and committed the rest,” she said, with some of the funds going to such expenses as online learning education assistants, and extra sanitizing supplies.
“We have staffing in place,” she said, adding that for compromised students they have an EA in place. By the end of October, they had spent 12 per cent of their funds, and Holy Family has to report what they’ve committed to spending until the end of the year.
If Holy Family goes to Level 3 at some point (they are currently in Level 2), the school division will be looking for additional resources, such as in mental health. Plus, all of their schools have an illness care room where students who show any symptoms of illness are to go until they are picked up by their parents, and the school designates an attendant for that room to care for any students there.
Other staffing requests are for 7.0 full-time equivalent teachers if they have to transition to more online learning, and for additional caretaking staff for all the buildings.
“We’re going to cover all our bases,” said Wonsiak. “We’re doing our best to get any funds we can. I feel there’s going to be a chunk of funds approved before Christmas to staff positions in January.”
Education director Gwen Keith said it isn’t easy trying to anticipate where they are headed with the pandemic, and ensuring the right staff and resources are in place to handle whatever level they will be heading into.
“If we do have to go to the next stage, it’s going to be costly for everybody,” said board chair Bruno Tuchscherer, pointing out if there is to be learning online, it will be mandatory, unlike when schools shut down in the spring. This will mean making sure every family has access to a laptop if they don’t already have one.
