REGINA – School’s out for summer, but not for the NDP who were back at work Monday hammering the government over education funding.
At a news conference at the Legislature, Education critic Matt Love and Associate Education critic Joan Pratchler pointed to announcements from school divisions of upcoming cutbacks when school does return this fall.
Love pointed to a letter from Regina Catholic School Division directly to the Minister of Education, warning that it will be forced to increase pupil teacher ratios.
“This means class sizes will be getting bigger right here in Regina as a direct result of the Sask Party bad news budget,” Love said. He said the division is saying this will “reduce their ability to provide individualized supports to students and place additional pressure on increasingly complex classrooms.”
“According to the board chair of Regina Catholic Schools they're projecting a $1.9 million dollar deficit while facing more than $3.6 million dollars in unavoidable cost pressures.”
Love also pointed to a recent posting on Facebook by Prairie Valley School Division, which stated that provincial funding “is $22 million dollars short of where it should be,” he said.
“This division is being forced to spend from their reserves to cover a deficit of more than $660,000 dollars and they've made it clear that ongoing predictable funding increases are needed to ensure long-term sustainability to provide the highest quality education possible for students.”
Love also pointed to the Northwest School Division, where he said parents have been told that funding “has been cut by more than 565,000 dollars compared to last year.”
“As a result the division is cutting its IT staff. They're returning learning coaches back to the classroom. They're eliminating a family advocate position in the division.
They're reducing bus routes and they're making other cuts just to balance the books. Now these aren't numbers on a spreadsheet. These are decisions affecting students affecting their learning and their future.”
Love characterized it as a “direct result of a decade of failures by the Sask Party government to fund education,” saying school boards have been “cut to the bone.”
“The message from school divisions is clear. They need support. They need predictable funding. They need a government that understands that investing in education is investing in Saskatchewan's future and our message to the government is also clear. You still have time to fix this. You have time to restore funding for classrooms before students return to school in the fall.”
Pratchler said what they are hearing from school divisions now is “deeply concerning because cuts like this don't happen in isolation.”
“Families are already under pressure. They're dealing with higher costs. They're dealing with the challenges of finding services and now they're seeing cuts and deficits in schools at the same time they're feeling uncertainty around child care especially for kindergarten students.”
In particular, Pratchler hammered the government over looming July 1 changes to child care funding, which she said are “going to hit hardest those part-time and casual placements and that is all the kindergarten students in our province.”
“Providers, parents and advocates have warned that these changes would eliminate access to many part-time and casual child care spaces that working families rely on. So families are looking at larger class sizes. They're looking at fewer supports in schools and they're looking at fewer and far more expensive child care options. That's not making life easier.”
When Love was asked about the Sask Party's contention that the education budget of $2.5 billion in operating funding is larger than it has ever been before, he had this to say:
“We hear the same thing every year at budget time from the Sask Party. Every single year they talk about record funding in education… So this government has been talking about record funding for years but during that time we have seen class sizes increase and the supports that our students need decrease. So I'd say it's time to be real with the people of Saskatchewan. It's time for them to own up with their record in education which is one of underfunding and failure. Our students when they get to school deserve to have a good shot at their start in life. School is a big part of that. It's time to fund education accordingly.”
As for what type of supports should be brought in, Love said that if you “listen to teachers, if you listen to educational workers, if you listen to parents and families they'll tell you this isn't rocket science.”
“They'll tell you exactly what we need. We need supports for students in schools to have a chance to succeed. We know that smaller class sizes benefit the learning environment. We know that having supports in schools in terms of the number of EAs to work one-on-one with students as well as other professionals that students often in our schools can go months or years on wait lists waiting to see specialists within our school divisions because those supports over the last decade of underfunding have been clawed back.”
