Budget cuts to slice into teachers, janitors, more
By Lexi Bainas, The Citizen
May 7, 2010

They had to find $3.1 million to balance their budget and Cowichan Valley School District staff have done it by bringing out their knives and scissors.

Cutting 10 teaching jobs, slicing five days from the school year, laying off custodians for seven weeks each year, moving bus-stops, shunting alternate education students back into high schools and forcing students to walk farther to catch a school bus are just the major items in a nine-page list that the district will present to the general public at a meeting Monday, May 10 …

District Secretary-Treasurer Bob Harper explained to the Board of Education and a packed board room May 5 how he and others had tried to keep what trustees had said they valued most while pruning in areas where at least a tentative okay had been given….

A major problem is that, after promising to start a full-day Kindergarten program in several schools, the district saw the expected funding dry up, meaning it now has to find the funds for that among all its other programs….