Budget challenges highlight of Catholic Trustee SCC report

Michael Oleksyn/Daily Herald The Prince Albert Catholic School Division board of education met in the Education Centre in September, 2022.

The provincial budget will be the focus when trustees from the Prince Albert Catholic School Division make their School Community Council (SCC) reports for May and June.

Director or Education Lorel Trumier outlined the report at the board of education’s regular meeting on May 8. Trumier said she is hopeful for some corrections in the budget after comments Premier Scott Moe recently made about additional funding.

“We’re looking forward to hearing (it) because Prince Albert Catholic schools is not unique to the province (compared to) what other larger urban cities are feeling,” Trumier said. “We know that the Saskatoon and Regina Divisions have made it very clear that they’re seen an influx of students who are coming to school from foreign countries and are speaking English as an additional language.”

Trumier said the Prince Albert Catholic Division is seeing a similar influx of students who speak English as an additional language. She said that’s an area where school divisions could use more support, but it’s just one of many.

“We know that with the additional students, we still have other needs,” she said. “We still need to put teachers in front of our students to support their students with special needs.”

Trumier added that there are also concerns about inflation, staffing and resource acquisition. That’s a concern since many classes require items like computers or other technology. The school division also has to pay site licences for the use of some online textbooks.

Trumier said they are hopeful because of recent announcements made by the Premier and they made the highlight of the current budget situation.

“I’ll be happy to change some of the information that gets sent to our families as soon as we get some of the announcements here to a point where we’re able to address them in an operational way,” Trumier said.

According to the SCC report they will receive $172,328 in operational funding which will be adjusted after the Sept. 30 actual enrolments. The division also received a decrease of $77,882 in Preventative Maintenance and Renewal (PMR) funding.

She said the SCC report is to make sure school community councils are advised of division happenings.

“It really is a great tool to communicate,” she explained. “We know that the principals be able to share it, if needed, when called upon (and) for parents looking for that information, they would have that at their fingertips.”

michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca

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