Trustees approved a balanced budget totaling $262.99 Million for the 2015/2016 school year.
The revenue forecast is based on the Grants for Student Needs (GSN) education funding model, which determines the Board’s operating grants and school renewal grants provided by the Ministry of Education.
There are four major categories of grants to the GSN funding model, these are: Pupil Foundation Grant, School Foundation Grant, Special Purpose Grants and the Pupil Accommodation Grant.
The 2015/16 budget has been developed on a projected enrolment of 21,970 students that includes an enrolment decline in the secondary schools of about 183 students.
A total teaching complement of 1407.2 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teachers has been provided in the budget along with 263 teacher assistants and 102 early childhood educators.
The overall total staff for the 2015/16 school year will be about 2,343.9 FTE employees.
The Board is entering the second year of the rollout of plan of the multi-year technology upgrade project, focused on building a 21st Century Technology Infrastructure Network throughout the Lambton Kent District School Board.
This project is key to providing all our students and educators with the technologies for tomorrow’s classroom. Creating a more mobile platform, improved access to digital resources and a technology platform that is easier to use and faster are all the outcomes being designed into this project to support classroom innovation and student engagement.
The total budget for the entire project is estimated at $4.6 Million Dollars. For this new school year $1.7M dollars has been included in the budget from the Board’s reserves to carry-out the 2nd phase of this technology plan. This improved infrastructure will support the Board’s Technology Enriched Learning Plan whereby every LKDSB Grade 7 student will receive an iPad beginning September 2015.
The budget year runs from September 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016.
