Nova Scotia's school boards have been told to cut their budgets by two per cent next year. (Jean Laroche/CBC)

The Dexter government will be cutting its overall budget for schools by two per cent for the coming year.

Boards are also being asked to cut administration costs by 15 per cent and consultant fees by 50 per cent over three years.

A briefing Tuesday afternoon from Deputy Education Minister Rosalind Penfound heard that the boards must do that while protecting funding for special needs students, including teaching assistants.

Penfound acknowledged boards would also be managing a $20- to $25-million shortfall because of inflation and rising teacher salaries.

Among the programs to be phased out is Reading Recovery. Penfound said the $7 million program was not delivering enough bang for the province's buck.

Reading Recovery is an early intervention program targeting grade one students who require extra support in reading and writing. Nova Scotia was the first province in Canada to implement the program province-wide. The government said it would be replaced with a different initiative.

In a letter to board chairs, Education Minister Ramona Jennex requested boards achieve targets under the following conditions:

• Teacher and support staff reductions must be achieved, as much as possible, through retirements and attrition. The student-teacher ratio would be kept below 15 to 1, the lowest ratio in a generation, according to the province
• Provincial supports for students with special needs must be protected. The province will maintain funding for special education at $125 million, the same level as 2010-11.
• Boards must target at least a 15 per cent reduction in administration in 2011-12 and plan for a 50 per cent reduction in board consultants over the next three years.The direct provincial funding for mentors for teachers must be reduced by 50 per cent in 2011-12.
• Provincial funding for targeted initiatives like the International Baccalaureate program and Healthy Living will remain at 2010-11 levels.
• Redirect a portion of funds for Reading Recovery, which will be phased out, into early reading intervention programs that will benefit more students.
• The province requires boards maintain the cap on class size from Primary to Grade 3, but it will permit boards to add no more than two additional students per class, in cases where this represents the best option to protect the quality of education in the classroom. For example, situations where the increase will allow boards to avoid split or combined classes.

Will hurt new teachers

Halifax Regional School Board chairman Irvine Carvery said Nova Scotia's largest board will have to absorb a one per cent budget cut plus inflationary costs like higher labour and utilities.

"We did not dodge a bullet…I don't feel relieved," he said. ""We have to find $12 million."

Carvery said he is confident the board can avoid hurting classrooms, but worries about the impact on younger teachers.

The directive to cut consultants and administration will hurt young teachers, Carvery said, because most of that represents teachers who have the right to "bump" back into classroom jobs.

The result will be particularly bad for substitute and term teachers who are trying to start their careers, he said.

"I'm really worried what we are doing to the next generation of teachers. They are going to leave the province," Carvery said.

Chignecto-Central Regional School Board chairwoman Trudy Thompson said it would likely take several days to absorb the information.

Chignecto-Central was the most vocal of Nova Scotia's school boards after the province asked boards to go through a budget exercise of cutting 22 per cent over three years. The board said that would result in hundreds of lost jobs.

Fiscally responsible

Jennex said the government is being fiscally responsible and protecting classroom resources.

"Based on this budget, a child in a classroom should see no difference in their delivery of the education that they receive," she said.

Jennex said this is simply asking boards to live with less because of declining school enrollments.

But Vic Fleury, president of the Nova Scotia School Boards' Association, isn't so sure students will not see a difference after the boards crunch the numbers and make the cuts.

"They will go back and they'll have to work with these figures and they'll have to come up with scenarios that accommodate it," he said. "And that's one of the questions, does it have a direct impact on the classroom?"

Alexis Allen, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers' Union, already anticipates one impact — more combined grades.

She said the province already has combined classes of three grades - Primary and grades 1 and 2, or grades 1, 2, and 3.

"And that's insane in this 2011 when we're going with more split classes," Allen said.

The province's scenario is based on 350 to 400 teachers retiring next year, she said, and there's no way that loss won't be felt in the classroom.