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Crowded classrooms have been a complaint for several years in Saskatchewan’s schools, and this week the provincial government announced a chunk of cash to help deal with it.
The government said it will put $29.5 million into purchasing 76 relocatable classrooms, also known as portables, for schools across the province. They are expected to be in place for the next school year.
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“This additional investment will ensure schools that anticipate capacity challenges in 2025-26 have the necessary infrastructure to accommodate students,” said Education Minister Everett Hindley in a news release.
Holy Family, Horizon, and Prairie Valley school divisions will each get one relocatable classroom. Conseil des Ecoles Fransaskoises and Lloydminster’s Catholic school division will each get one classroom. Saskatoon’s public school division will get eight, while Regina’s public school division is set to get 10.
The most will go to Regina and Saskatoon’s Catholic school divisions, getting 24 and 27 respectively.
In the Regina Catholic division, St. Augustine, St. Francis, St. Raphael, St. Timothy, and St. Nicholas schools will each get new portables, along with Riffel high school.
The new classroom for St. Raphael is for the new joint-use school, which will open in 2026.
In Saskatoon’s Catholic division, Bethlehem, St. Joseph and Holy Cross high schools will get classrooms, along with Father Robinson, Holy Mary in Martensville, Holy Trinity in Warman, St. Angela, St. Bernard, St. Lorenzo Ruiz, St. Mark, St. Mary’s, and St. Thérèse.
The division will also moving seven relocatables from St. Frances Cree Bilingual School to Cardinal Leger, St. Luke, and Father Vachon schools.
Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation president Samantha Becotte. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME file photo)
No money for supports
Samantha Becotte, president of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) agreed space is needed in schools. She said she’d recently heard about a school in Regina where two classes where using the library as their classroom at the same time.
“You can imagine, if you’ve got two classrooms happening at the same time, or two lessons happening at the same time and in the same space, it can be pretty disruptive to students’ ability to learn in that environment,” said Becotte.
But she said supports in those new classrooms are needed as well.
“With this announcement, there was no announcement of additional teachers, additional EAs, additional any other specialties within schools — whether it’s speech-language pathologists, or counsellors, or educational psychologists — and all of those are needed as well to support students,” she said.
Becotte said it is hard to estimate which schools people moving to Saskatchewan will end up sending their kids to, but mentioned the premier has talked a lot about the growth he wants in the province and government should be planning for the infrastructure to handle it.
She said the provincial government made a lot of promises in its Speech from the Throne last fall, including increased funding, more teachers, and improving reading levels, but added she hasn’t seen any financial resources brought to bear on those promises yet.
Becotte said she’ll be looking for that in the spring budget, expected in about a month and when that budget is released, she said she’ll be focused on the operational spending.
“Ensuring that increase to the operating budget exceeds the rate of enrollment growth so we’re not decreasing the amount that we are investing in each of the students in Saskatchewan.”
She also wants to see the money exceed the inflation rate as well, as schools have been hit hard by things like fuel costs for bussing.
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