Nanaimo school district approved a spending plan at last week’s regular board meeting which will allocate close to $1.5 million from the provincial government.
The Learning Improvement Fund is part of the Education Improvement Act and the school district will be using the $1.5 million to advance its response to invervention strategy, which it says ensures that all students are supported by appropriate interventions when there is a perceived risk of failure.
Of this year’s money, $190,000 will go toward education assistant support staff; eight instructional coordinators have been hired at a total cost of $794,576; $150,000 will go toward staff professional development related to response to invervention, self-regulated learning and early literacy.
The remaining $334,126 will be held in reserve.
The $150,000 for teacher professional development is a new addition and will help in planning.
“Our learning services staff during the year would be planning workshops for teachers and principals, all educators, related to those topics and it’s because of our strategic plan and our district focus,” said school district communications director Donna Reimer.
She said the $334,126 reserve fund allocation has to be used for purposes related to the fund.
“One of the purposes of the Learning Improvement Fund is to address class composition issues and so we keep the reserve fund to use during the year as situations arise that we may need to address,” Reimer said.