The Saskatchewan School Board Association has launched a campaign to retain local school boards. Called Education Belongs to Communities, the campaign includes advice on writing letters and a short opinion survey directed at provincial decision-makers.

In November the province announced a review of school governance, including the possibility of reducing or eliminating the province’s 28 public and Catholic school boards. The SSBA argues that boards are important to ensuring local needs are considered, and that they have together saved more than $9 million in the last school year.

John Weins, a Manitoba based researcher who studies school governance, argues that savings from amalgamation are questionable, because larger districts tend to spend more on senior level salaries. “If it’s about money, I think there is actually no evidence to show at all that anybody has saved money by doing this,” Weins said in an interview with CBC Saskatchewan’s Morning Edition.