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A matter of boundaries

Last week’s provincial budget wasn’t welcome news on a lot of fronts. But one announcement that should be resoundingly applauded is the provincial government’s decision to not tinker with Saskatchewan’s school division boundaries.

Last week’s provincial budget wasn’t welcome news on a lot of fronts.

But one announcement that should be resoundingly applauded is the provincial government’s decision to not tinker with Saskatchewan’s school division boundaries.

Twenty-eight school divisions seems to be the right number for the people of Saskatchewan. The government went through hearings to determine whether the school divisions should go through forced amalgamation, but the people said they want the status quo.

(We could have told the provincial government that people were strongly opposed to a reduction in the number of school divisions, and saved the government the money they spent on so-called transformational change in education).

Saskatchewan went through the process of mass school division amalgamations back in 2005. A lot of people weren’t happy to have these monolithic school divisions replacing the smaller divisions that dotted the province.

Changes were certainly necessary to the number of school divisions in the province at that time. Saskatchewan had more school divisions than any other province in the country. And you had divisions like Big Butte separate division, which didn’t have a school. 

But many will argue the New Democratic Party government of the day went too far. People feel more distant from their school board trustees. Once upon a time, rural boards were divided into small subdivisions. Those subdivisions are much larger now. And some ratepayers have to travel several hours to reach their school division head office.

Also, people might have been a little leery about forced school division amalgamation after the government announced plans for a single health region for the entire province earlier this year.

We’re concerned about the future of frontline health-care in the province after the single health authority announcement. And people were concerned how fewer school divisions might affect their children’s education.

Nobody was suggesting the government would move to one school division for Saskatchewan; that would be insanity. But it seems most think the South East Cornerstone Public School Division is big enough.

They also didn’t want to see a marriage between the public and separate school divisions.

We are also delighted to hear that the school divisions will continue to have publicly elected trustees. Yes, our school board elections are typically decided by acclamation. The last time we had a school board election in Estevan was 2005, when four candidates battled for the two Estevan seats on the Cornerstone board.

However, we still have people stepping forward and submitting nomination papers to run for schools board. And if we need an election, then we have one. It’s still the people who determine school board trustees, not the government.

School boards need to be elected publicly. And they need autonomy to do their jobs properly.

And it would appear there will be 28 of these school boards moving forward.