Until January, Saskatchewan school boards will be running with an extra layer of overseers.
In a June 15 election, 136 trustees were elected to join the approximately 600 now sitting on school boards. Within six months, however, the number of trustees in the province will be halved as those new trustees take over in the 13 enlarged school divisions resulting from forced amalgamations. Voter turnout in the June 15 election was 14.2 percent.
Another 13 school boards with 120 trustees will not be amalgamated because of size or uniqueness, including those in Saskatoon, Regina, Lloydminster and the north. Next year, those 120 will join the newly elected 136 to officially administer school board business for the province’s 170,000 elementary and high school students.
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Lance Bean, president of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association, is one of the trustees who will be presiding over an amalgamated division.
“For a lot of people, they run on boards because this is close to their heart,” he said while taking a break from spraying on his Rouleau farm.
“They’ve got families in school.”
Two weeks ago voters went with the tried and true, with all but 23 of the newly elected trustees being incumbents.
Bean said the amalgamation process has been a whirlwind. After years of cajoling school boards to merge into larger units, the provincial government decided last year to unilaterally reduce the number of divisions in the province to 40 from 78. It drew the map and trustees and ratepayers were left with the result.
“Last year at this time it was very divided in the province,” said Bean. “A lot were passionate against it. A lot said it should have happened a long time ago. Some were just resigned.”
Bean said most people are now settled and ready to work with the new system.
One man who isn’t happy with the forced amalgamation is Hudson Bay farmer and teacher Bill Lozinski.
He said the enlarged divisions are a make-work project that have no benefits and will end up draining the energy out of rural people. He said there is a rural-urban split in the province that will worsen as more rural schools are forced to close as the result of decisions based on which community has the most trustees.
“Hudson Bay is now a subdivision of Melfort. They have four reps to our one on a 10-person board. The new trustees are now 100 miles (160 kilometres) away. They are no longer your neighbour.”
Lozinski said the loss of political participation caused by reducing the number of trustees is unnecessary and he challenged the Saskatchewan Party to prove it represents rural Saskatchewan by overturning the forced amalgamations if it forms government in the next provincial election.
While Lozinski acknowledged rural populations are falling, he said for a school with 50 children faced with closure, “the local people need to make that decision. People will do that because they love their children and want the best for them.”
He said the government should be offering financial incentives so trustees can come up with innovative solutions to smaller enrolments rather than closing rural schools and busing the children farther.
Bean agreed that rural school closures are a bad experience. However, as a trustee he said a school closure is based on one fact- there aren’t enough children in the community. He said that is a continuing trend.
“There are 2,500-3,500 fewer students per year in (each of) the last five years. And it’s not just in Saskatchewan. Even in Alberta.”
Bean also said last year’s protest by rural municipalities that chose not to collect education taxes is not the answer.
“We had some grave concerns because it forces boards to borrow. It probably took $1 million out of classrooms last year and put it into bank charges.”
