Re: Cost to fire a trans teacher: $367,000 and counting.
Hate and bigotry are still hate and bigotry, even when one tries to hide it behind the privilege of religious belief. The treatment of Mr. Buterman has been disgusting in the extreme and the exact opposite of what one would hope Christianity was really about.
To be clear, a PUBLIC school board, not a separate Catholic board, fired Mr. Buterman. The school district at the time was public in every way, and Catholic in name only.
Not that that argument holds any water anyway. Human rights do not get a special pass in faith schools – a fact confirmed when former premier Jim Prentice got an outside legal opinion before bowing to public pressure on Bill 10. A bill, that among other things, confirmed the right of students in separate schools to form (and name) GSAs (Gay Straight Alliances).
GSACRD though, the school district with the worst human rights record of any Alberta school district has denied several GSAs to date. Along with its refusal to grant other Charter Rights to parents and children, discriminatory hiring practices and a refusal to share resources with the Public board to save the taxpayer money.
And before anybody says the Catholic system is funded by directed property taxes, it isn't. The check mark on your form does nothing in effect. All the money goes in a pot and the money follows the child – and only around 23 per cent of the education budget even comes from property taxes.
Just to be clear, average cost per student is $13,000 and change per year. You have three kids in Catholic school, that's a tab of $40,000 a year.
Given your property tax contribution is only around $2,000 a year total of your $5,000 bill, that leaves your Catholic education contribution some $38,000 a year short.
In fact operating this outdated, unfair and inefficient duplicate school system costs the Alberta taxpayer around $200 million every year in waste and inefficiency. Money that should be getting spent on schools and school kids instead of favouring one religion over all others with public tax dollars.
The treatment of Mr. Buterman is unacceptable. And it shines a lot of light on – along with other examples from other Catholic boards – why it is time to end this archaic, unfair and outdated, inefficient and entitled non-cooperative duplicate system.
And as far as legal costs go, the Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association – (the very same group that has a policy to not share infrastructure, resources or busing with public boards and children) has also had a levy on the head of every child in the Catholic system since 2009, collecting several dollars per child, per year and putting it in a legal fund (now worth many millions) to fight the public, with the money the public gave them in the first place.
Enough.
Luke Fevin, St. Albert
