Start of school delayed, $40M in provincial funding announced

Premier Scott Moe announced Saturday a delayed start to the school year and $40 million in funding for resources after hearing feedback on the Saskatchewan Party’s return-to-school guidelines.

The update came in a video posted to the premier’s Facebook page Saturday afternoon.

“Over the past few weeks, we’ve been listening to concerns from students, parents and teachers about returning to school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our government hears you,” Moe’s post read.

His Sask. Party government introduced its back-to-school guidelines on Aug. 4 and Level 1 — the level at which students were to return when schools reopened — immediately drew concern.

It left the onus on school divisions to create individual plans, which included whether to mandate mask use, stagger start times and how to handle recess and lunch breaks.

Further details, released on Tuesday, allowed schools to start the year with mandatory mask use for students in grades four through 12 in common areas and areas where physical distancing cannot be maintained.

In Saturday’s video, Moe said school divisions would provide further details on each individual school plan on or before Aug. 26.

Moe noted he and the province’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, would lay out more details of the changes that are being made during a media conference Monday.

“On Monday, I will be joined by Dr. Shahab to announce a number of measures that will provide more information, more time, more testing capacity and more resources to ensure a safe return to school for all Saskatchewan students,” Moe said.

Schools will now have more time to implement return-to-class plans as well.

“Students will begin classes on the Tuesday after Labour Day, Sept. 8. This is a few days later than students would normally return to class, but it will provide teachers and school staff a few additional days to prepare their classrooms and the common areas for a safe return,” the premier explained.

The video also addressed one of the common concerns voiced by the opposition NDP and education groups — testing.

“We have increased our COVID testing capacity now to 3,000 tests per day and that will be further increased to 4,000 tests per day by early September to ensure that any Saskatchewan resident who wants to be tested can be tested,” Moe said in the video.

“We will also have a COVID testing plan developed specifically for our schools with voluntary testing right in the schools for both our students and our staff.”

The video finished with Moe reasserting his government’s record with handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Over the past few months, together we have reopened our economy, our health-care services and many other activities in communities across the province. We have reopened all of these things safely while still controlling the spread of COVID-19 and I know that by working together, we can reopen our schools safely as well,” he stated.

Meili calls plan ‘too little, too late’

Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili said the Sask. Party’s back-to-school plan remains inadequate.

“There’s nothing on class sizes, nothing on ventilation, no clear guidance on masks. It looks like it will be up to school divisions when it comes to heavy lifting,” Meili said in an interview with 650 CKOM Saturday afternoon.

“It feels like they are just trying to do damage control.”

Meili said he’s not confident the school year will start on Sept. 8, saying there are too many crucial questions that remain unanswered.

“We need more clear guidance on how they plan to deal with outbreaks, clear guidance on masks in schools, they need to take responsibility before passing it down to school divisions,” he said.

“It’s too little, too late,” he said.

“It’s deeply disappointing to see them do damage control. We deserve better.”