Thank you.
We recognize that Ottawa is located on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.
I'm Val Windsor. I chair the ELL Consortium. I'm also an elected school trustee from Delta.
My colleagues are Jennifer Reddy, who is a Vancouver School trustee, and Heather Hart, an associate superintendent of Burnaby. We overlap here.
First of all, thank you for the opportunity to bring before you the concerns of the Metro Vancouver/Fraser Valley ELL Consortium about settlement service criteria and funding.
The consortium is an ad hoc committee of the B.C. School Trustees Association, consisting of elected school trustees and staff whose expertise is in the area of English language learners.
Imagine two students who are new to Canada sitting in desks in the same classroom. Both students are entitled to the same support that the school system has to offer through its professional staff. However, only one student's family is eligible for IRCC-funded settlement services.
In spite of this difference in eligibility for service, many of our school districts, through settlement workers in our schools and other staff, are doing their best to provide what services they can for ineligible families. Often, they are forced to prioritize the needs of these families and then refer them to external settlement agencies that are likewise stretched.
Funding is tied to specific goals and commitments made in the competition for contracts. Flexibility is needed in the funding for settlement providers to best meet the needs of an always-changing clientele and demographic. The newcomers we are assisting now will not have the same needs as those who arrive after the contracts have been awarded.
The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle represent the complexity of settlement needs. A single family with greater needs will access many of these services. Some of them will access hundreds of services, and yet others will need very few: 20 or so. Each service is necessary to help the family navigate not only a complex education system but other aspects of their lives that are equally challenging, as the jigsaw puzzle indicates.
In 2007, the federal government, through the Canada-B.C. Immigration Agreement, directed settlement funding to the Province of B.C. for distribution. The provincial government awarded contracts to school districts and other settlement agencies, giving them the flexibility to manage the funds as they were needed. If any funds remained at the end of the provincial fiscal year, they were carried over to the following year.
Newcomers were served by the Province of B.C. through settlement programs between 2007 and 2014. Permanent residents are those for whom the funding was targeted, but other newcomers were served as well because of the flexibility in the use of the funding.
In 2014, the federal government repatriated the funding for settlement programs and informed settlement service providers that while they were welcome to provide services for ineligible newcomers, the funding was specifically targeted for permanent residents—as it had always been—and they were changing the way the funding would be distributed and spent.
We are proud of of the wraparound settlement services provided in our school districts. With schools being the first point of contact for newcomer families, access to services can be arranged in a short period of time, which is a benefit to the student and the family as they are helped to integrate into their schools and communities.
We have concerns about the current funding model. School districts, like settlement agencies, now have to compete for funds through a national call for proposal process. Although the contract specifies a negotiated amount, some of it is received as supplemental funding that is released in small amounts, with little lead time and with rigid guidelines that impact a district's ability to plan for staffing and program delivery.
Another issue for school districts is that federal budgets do not align with provincial school calendars. Funding expires on March 31 and schools operate until June 30, leaving a three-month unfunded gap for students and families. This has caused significant anxiety in some of our school districts such as Surrey, for example, as ours is a unionized environment, and without a guarantee of a contract, they are looking at having to lay off staff in their settlement programs and close their welcome centres.
In spite of the increased numbers of newcomers from 2015 to 2017, settlement funds were cut. In 2017 the ELL Consortium lobbied the federal government to not only eliminate the cuts but to increase the funding. The funding was not cut, but it was not increased. This meant doing more with less.
The pie charts on the next slide graphically illustrate the concerns we have about the numbers of IRCC-ineligible individuals who are receiving services from the five school districts pictured. These just a sampling of impacted school districts. The ineligible numbers have been steadily increasing over the years, to the point that they outnumber the eligible newcomers in many districts. As you can imagine, staff and resources are stretched to provide these services, often off the side of their desks. Our mandate is to support and educate students in our schools, but their families need support, too, if their children are to succeed.
I'd like to leave you with the image of the two students in a classroom whose families have similar settlement needs, but who actually receive different levels of service. If you had to choose between giving more support to one student and their family over the other, could you do it? This is a choice some school districts in B.C. are being forced to make.
The ELL Consortium urges the government to allow for inclusion of all those needing settlement support, regardless of their immigration status, and to not only increase funding but to allow for more flexibility in its use so we can meet the needs of a changing newcomer population. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.
Thank you.