At the Sept. 18 Rocky View Schools (RVS) board of trustees meeting, the board voted against a motion from Trustee Sylvia Eggerer to decline a three per cent increase to the trustee honorarium that was applied this Sept. 1.
“Our grant increase (from the provincial government) was zero per cent so we’re not getting any money other than to bump up our teacher’s salary to the provincial average,” Eggerer said as she made the motion against the increase to the trustee’s salary.
“I believe people should lead by example,” she added. “I believe what is good enough for the people we work with, should be good enough for us too.”
The Trustee Honoraria policy states each Sept. 1 the honoraria be adjusted by a ratio equal to the change in the Calgary Consumer Price Index (C.C.P.I.), comparing the June C.C.P.I. to the previous June’s C.C.P.I.
This year, that adjustment translates to a three per cent increase for the trustees.
“The amount that we’re talking about is $33.42 per month for a trustee,” Trustee Bev LePeare said, adding the trustee compensation accounts for less than a quarter of a per cent of the division’s total budget.
Darrell Couture, associate superintendent of business and operations, said the total honorarium budgeted for the trustees is $33,500 and the three per cent increase accounts for about a $9,000 increase.
Trustee Norma Lang and LePeare both questioned why a policy was in place for trustee honorariums if the board questions it each year, and Lang added the division sought input from the public when they developed the policy. She said she felt the board should honour the public input and follow through with the pay adjustment outlined in the policy.
Eggerer’s motion was defeated and she was the only one who voted in favour of it.
Alternative calendar
The board accepted the Alternative Calendar Report for information but made no decision on the feasibility of an alternative calendar at the Sept. 18 meeting.
“There’s no inherent advantages or disadvantages to being on an alternative calendar,” Associate Superintendent of Schools Murray Besenski told the board.
The alternate calendar was used at Ralph McCall since 1998 but was voted down by the board in March of this year, forcing the school to adopt the division-wide calendar in the 2014/15 school year.
The Alternative Calendar Report examined three independent studies on alternative calendars dating from 1994 to 2009 and their own in-house RVS data and found, the independent data “does not conclusively point to alternative calendars or year-round schooling improving or reducing the quality of education and student achievement,” while the in-house data suggested “little or no positive links to calendar positively impacting student achievement results,” according to the report.
“We are a division that is known for putting ourself out there and trying different things,” Eggerer said as she made the motion to accept the report as information. “We don’t necessarily conform and it was something that was really appreciated by a group of parents. There has to be something good about something so many people like.” She accepted the report as information.
