The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has presented the results of a survey aimed at gathering feedback on how funds are best being spent.
During Tuesday evening’s WECDSB meeting, the board received the information on the results of the 2023-24 budget consultation survey.
The purpose of the survey is to provide information on Board budget trends and to help formulate the priorities of students and their families.
The survey’s six questions asked parents, guardians, and students to rank the terms on a scale of one to five, with five representing the most and one representing the least amount of resources allocated.
Questions covered student mental health and well-being, faith-building opportunities, student literacy and numeracy learning, equitable learning opportunities that meet the needs of a diverse student population, information technology resources and a safe computing environment, and support for students with special needs support needs.
Stakeholders identified supporting “students’ learning of literacy and math” and “supporting students with special educational needs” as the most important for resource allocation.
Penny King, Executive Superintendent of Business at the Windsor-Essex Catholic School Board, says the priorities that emerged from the survey did not come as a surprise to the school board.
“They are consistent with provincial priorities and how the ministry has allocated resources to boards in the current school year. So we’ve focused our current priorities on those areas and as such it’s still important for Board stakeholders to see the results and see that if that is the case, we will continue to look at other ways to address those priorities support.”
The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has released the results of the 2023-24 Household Advice Survey. March 28, 2023 (Image credit: Courtesy WECDSB website)
She says the Ontario budget had support for education priorities, which they are also looking at.
“Next, the Department of Education will release its student needs grants, which is the primary funding formula for all school boards. And that’s how we can really see the application until we get that information from the state budget specifically to the school board.”
King adds that they think it’s important for college students to be able to fill out the survey as well.
“It’s very important to hear their voice and see what they’re feeling because they’re the ones who are in the classrooms every day. So it’s very important for us to see what they think is needed to support them in terms of resource allocation, whether that’s something special education, mental health, more literacy support.”
This year, the survey received 3,050 responses, compared to 4,785 responses for the 2022-23 household advice survey.
The 2023-24 household survey was posted on the Board’s website on January 30. The final draft budget is scheduled to be presented to the Board of Trustees on June 13th for final approval on June 20th.
