As the Waterloo Region District School Board and Waterloo Catholic District School Board work to finalize their 2023-2024 school year calendar, four unaligned professional development days is estimated to come at a cost of $367,714.
The WRDSB would be on the hook for $260,188, with the WCDSB taking on the remaining $107,526.
The main cause of the monetary impact is the use of the board’s transportation.
“The $367,714 cost is an estimate of the total cost that will be incurred to operate our bus fleet on the additional days,” a WRDSB spokesperson told CambridgeToday.
“With 194 school days and seven PD days, perfect alignment would require us to run buses on 187 days. The unaligned days mean that our bus fleet, or portions thereof, will run for 191 days.”
This isn’t the first time issues aligning the calendar’s has come at a cost.
According to past WRDSB Board of Trustee meeting agendas, this year's calendar resulted in three unaligned days with an estimated to cost of $296,000.
Numbers were unavailable for the 2021-2022 school year but in 2020-2021, three days was estimated at $255,000.
The number of days not aligned in 2019-2020 was not available, but estimated costs were $245,000.
It's unclear how COVID-19 restrictions may have impacted these numbers.
“Although we always attempt to align our PD days with our coterminous board, there are operational and contractual differences that make perfect alignment unattainable," the board said.
“We have worked with a broad range of stakeholders to optimize the allocation of our PD days. We also work very closely with our coterminous board to see where some flexibility, on both sides, might be possible.”
When reached for comment, WRDSB chairperson Joanne Weston said “the board continues to make every effort to align the PD days to minimize additional costs.”
The additional costs for the public board will be absorbed within the available operating budget.
Both board’s calendars will be released once they have been approved by the Ministry of Education.
