Saskatchewan’s provincial budget will be presented Wednesday afternoon, with big changes forecast for education. Already schools are preparing to be understaffed, teachers and school staff are preparing for frozen and reduced wages and benefits, and school trustees are preparing for the disruption of school board amalgamations.

Expected outcomes for our children include larger class sizes, fewer EAs to help meet special needs, a loss of substitute teachers, and tightening of budgets for all the extras that make learning interesting and enriching. Some will see their teachers transferred away to the new P3 schools, as there is no other plan to staff these new schools.

But that is not the only vision of the future. Based on your comments in a member survey, RealRenewal has an alternative plan for holistic, community-centred, properly staffed public education, which we submitted to a SaskForward forum in February. We also offered ideas for improved local governance to the advisory panel on education governance in January. As well, the SaskForward consultations resulted in a vision for a province that puts people’s basic needs first, including education.

The question is: how do we get there? By working together. By not taking cuts to our children’s future lying down. By acting as responsible citizens to save education.  Yes, I want to help defend pubic education!

Things to Read

• RealRenewal submission to SaskForward on Educational Transformation, Feb. 18, 2017
• RealRenewal submission to the Advisory Panel on Education Governance, Jan. 23, 2017
• SaskForward: Saskatchewan Speaks: Policy Recommendations for Transformational Change, March 16, 2017