Citizenship and Immigration committee  Could I clarify that in our high schools we have over 90 languages that the students can bring into the building? It's an astronomical challenge to meet those kids.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The community schools provide a host of opportunities for families, and there is a community room within the school where parents can come in. There's food that can be brought in. There are community kitchens where they learn to cook the food that they find in our country that may be unfamiliar to them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Provincial funding is tabulated for the number of students who have arrived in our schools by September 30 of that school year. Any students who arrive after that, October 1 and on to the end of June, are not funded by our provincial system. Those students must be accommodated within our existing resources.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Also, in the school system, when we have children coming in at 15, 16, and 17 years of age and they're illiterate in their first language, we're trying to, in a very short period of time, provide them some basic literacy, basic numeracy, some job readiness skills, and then some opportunities for work experience.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Currently, we have seven.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They seem to—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  These have to do with the students coming here who are 18 years and younger. The data are for an eight-month period from January to August of 2006. For those 18 years and younger, we've had 150 individuals, 75 of them coming to Burnaby, which is 50% of them. Surrey had 24%, Richmond 16%, and so on.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good morning. I am pleased to be able to address the committee on behalf of the Burnaby Board of School Trustees and to speak to you about some of the challenges we face in meeting the educational and social needs of our new student citizens. The Burnaby School District has experienced many changes in the past two decades in direct relation to immigration patterns and trends.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I am Diana Mumford, a school trustee in the Burnaby district.