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Schools in the Kamloops-Thompson school district could see 77 jobs cut as the district points to a shortfall in government funding.

The roughly $200 million from the province to fund Kamloops schools is almost unchanged from last year, but that's precisely the issue, according to School District 73.

"We acknowledge the ideal is to have no reductions to staff," superintendent Rhonda Nixon said at an April 9 school board meeting. "We care deeply about these people because they made a hugely positive difference in students' lives. We know these staff. They're our colleagues, our friends and sometimes family. They matter, but we do not have provincial funding to sustain the staffing levels."

Salaries make up the majority of the district's budget and they've been rising steadily as inflation drives up other costs, but the BC government's public school funding has not. As BC approaches the end of the school year, school districts are likely to start looking for ways to cut their costs.

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For the Kamloops-Thompson school district that means making up for a $6 million shortfall, and for Surrey, BC's largest school district, it's $16 million.

"The thing is the province hasn't kept up," Kamloops-Thompson Teacher's Association president Laurel Macpherson said. She agrees the cost of everything is high but education funding hasn't kept pace with those rising costs.

BC's education ministry funds school districts based on enrolment and Kamloops might have just peaked at around 16,000 students. Kamloops-Thompson schools are expected to steadily lose a few hundred students over the next decade.

Earlier this year, the Central Okanagan School District was confronted with a $4.4 million shortfall, largely due to overestimating how many new students it would have. At least 400 new students were expected to start in September, but that school district only saw 153.

It will likely face cuts as the budget is released April 11, but whether that means job losses isn't known.

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According to MacPherson, less funding and fewer staff means more work for the teachers left behind.

She said the high workload has made it difficult to attract people into the profession. A job that already places pressure on the teachers there, coupled with job cuts to both teachers and support staff, only adds more pressure.

"When a teacher is overwhelmed... then they start taking time off. It affects them physically and mentally," Macpherson said. "So it's a vicious cycle here. This is where the concern lies."

The school board is yet to finalize the budget, but Kamloops-Thompson schools are poised to lose at least 27 full-time teaching jobs and 49 support staff with the $6 million in cuts. That's after spending nearly $5.8 million on salary increases, hiring for a new elementary school and other costs going up with inflation like fuel and insurance.

Which jobs will be cut hasn't been decided yet, but the support staff's union president said it's not just teaching cuts that will affect students.

"Children make connections with the adults and in their buildings they encounter everyday. The loss of those people and those relationships is going to be confusing for them, and it's going to create feelings of uncertainty," CUPE 3500 president Dawn Armstrong said.

Education assistants, custodians, IT, bus drivers and maintenance workers are just some of the roles union employees fill at the district. Though she echoed others in pointing blame at a provincial funding shortfall, Armstrong urged the board to reconsider its job cuts.

"It's in times of instability like this students need dependable services, not cuts," she said. 

The Kamloops school district will start picking out which specific jobs are on the chopping block by the end of April, and Macpherson expects it will more likely fall on teachers who fill support roles than those who spend all their time in the classroom. Even if that doesn't mean ballooning classroom sizes, she said the job pressure on those remaining will trickle down to students.

"When you start taking away things from a system that you think aren't going to impact, it does down the line impact student learning," Macpherson said.

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