Provincial Minister of Education Margaret MacDiarmid appears to be in no hurry to discuss the Langley School District’s $9.1 million deficit with the teachers’ union.

“I have been told [by a ministry official] that it’s ‘in for consideration at this point’,” Langley Teachers Association president Susan Fonseca said Monday.

The LTA had requested an urgent meeting with MacDiarmid to discuss the district’s plan to repay $3.3 million in each of the next three years. The union denounced the plan, which was unveiled by school superintendent Cheryle Beaumont last week, as “totally unacceptable.”

“Langley teachers are deeply concerned that the proposed repayment of $3.3 million per year for the next three years, in addition to ‘finding’ funds to offset the $9.1 million overspent in 2008/09,” Fonseca wrote in an Oct. 13 letter to MacDiarmid.

The plan “will result in incapacitating and debilitating cuts to student services,” she said.

“What teachers would like you to know is that education services in this district are already in critical condition. Our students cannot afford to sacrifice their educational opportunities to repay a debt created by senior management,” Fonseca wrote.

The union has also taken exception to secretary-treasurer Wayne Braun’s remark that schools will be “squeezed a bit but not short-changed.”

If the proposed Debt Elimination Plan proceeds, “our schools and students will be trash compacted,” Fonseca said.

Meanwhile, Langley teachers continue to put heat on Beaumont, the superintendent of schools. At a meeting on Monday, approximately 60 teachers voted unanimously to recommend that the B.C. Teachers Federation “review the oversight role of the superintendent in the accumulation of the $8.3 million debt in Langley.”

The LTA, which represents 1,100 full time equivalent teachers, will ask the Representative Assembly, which is made up of representatives of teachers’ unions across the province, to make that recommendation to the BCTF.

The LTA executive was ruled out of order at the board’s Sept. 22 meeting when Fonseca attempt to convey a motion from the membership calling on the board to seek Beaumont’s resignation.

Braun said that it would be more appropriate to send a letter to the board, as firings and resignations are personnel matters which local governments and boards typically do not discuss in public.

Yesterday (Tuesday), Fonseca said that the LTA will not repeat the call for Beaumont’s resignation, because a majority of trustees gave the superintendent a vote of confidence.

“They have taken a vote and we decided that it wouldn’t be productive,” Fonseca said.