REGINA – Together with communities across the country, school boards throughout the province will again officially recognize “Orange Shirt Day” on Saturday, Sept. 30, as requested annually by the Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA).

Sept. 30 has also been proclaimed federally in Canada as National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

“On behalf of our 27 member boards of education, the SSBA is encouraging school communities, and all residents of the province, to participate in Orange Shirt Day by wearing orange and taking the time to reflect on the history and harmful legacy of residential schools,” said Jaimie Smith-Windsor, president of the SSBA. “This day represents an opportunity to expand our understandings and commit to growing together and toward reconciliation.”

Orange Shirt Day is part of a larger movement in the country to provide opportunity to unite in a spirit of reconciliation and hope for our future generations.

This day was first proclaimed in Saskatchewan in 2016 and the Government of Saskatchewan proclaims the day every year at the request of the SSBA.

REGINA – Ten schools in Saskatchewan will each receive a $15,000 grant to support student nutrition after being selected to win this year’s Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge.

The Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge has reached 103 Saskatchewan schools to date, and every year, more and more applications come in,” said Sarah Fedorchuk, Mosaic’s Vice President Government & Public Affairs – North America. “For 2023, we increased project funding to $15,000 from $10,000 to reflect rising costs and greater needs. Each of these 10 impactful projects will create healthier school nutrition environments for kids across the province for years to come.”

The grants will support winning projects that have goals including implementing or expanding nutrition programs, enhancing kitchen and garden facilities, increasing educational opportunities for students and families and supporting reconciliation and cultural projects.

Schools from across the province submitted their projects to compete for the total of $150,000 in prizes, provided by Mosaic. Schools receiving grants this year are governed by the Greater Saskatoon Catholic, Living Sky, North East, Northwest, Northern Lights, Prairie Valley, Prairie South and Saskatchewan Rivers school boards and the Battlefords First Nation High School Joint Board of Education.

To encourage grassroots initiatives to help improve student nutrition, this program, formerly known as the Mosaic Extreme School Makeover Challenge, began in 2006.

“We are very thankful for Mosaic’s longstanding dedication to this program, now in its 17th year,” said Jaimie Smith-Windsor, president of the SSBA. “We want to make particular note of our gratitude for the new funding amount of $15,000 per school that Mosaic put in place starting this year.”

Backgrounder: Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge 2023 Recipients

SASKATOON – The education funding allocated in last month’s 2023-24 provincial budget will not be enough to maintain the current operations of Saskatchewan’s 27 school boards, which are now uncovering the local financial implications.

“The reality of this budget is becoming much more alarming as the detailed analysis happens,” said Jaimie Smith-Windsor, president of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA), a non-partisan organization representing all boards in the province. “The funding for school operations falls short on many fronts.”

Furthermore, the way the government presented the numbers on budget day is misleading to the public, said Smith-Windsor. The $49.4 million, or 2.5 per cent, operating-grant increase announced in March was a comparison to 2022-23 budget-day figures, not to the actual amount divisions received last year.

At least $35.5 million of that is not actually new. That includes $20 million allocated in July 2022 for inflationary increases that was included in school divisions’ 2022-23 budgets, as well as $15.5 million provided in December for enrolment increases that had exceeded projections by 3,840 students.

“It is an irresponsible misrepresentation to frame these dollars announced last year as being part of an increase,” said Smith-Windsor. “The funding of education with public money should, at the very least, be transparent and easily understood, whether the news is good or bad. The public needs to be engaged in the bigger conversation about the value of education and the investment we put into it.”

The remaining $13.9 million equals an increase of just 0.7 per cent for 2023-24. This falls short of what is needed to maintain the status quo, with boards facing increasing costs in many areas.

These include support staff collective agreements; teacher salary increments and local agreement costs; statutory benefit increases and other payroll-related costs; and fuel, insurance and utility increases. Additional factors include other general inflation, unprecedented enrolment growth and the continuing need for specialized programming.

Preliminary estimates suggest funding shortfalls will be of a magnitude of multiple tens of millions. In the coming weeks, school boards need to consider options that might include staffing and programming cuts.

“Boards have been advocating for adequate and sustainable funding for a long time and our ability to deliver services to students has been eroded in recent years,” said Smith-Windsor. “With significant surplus revenues and the development of a new Provincial Education Plan, boards expected better investment in Saskatchewan’s future from this budget.”

REGINA – The Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA) recognizes the small increase in funding for the school system in today’s provincial budget, but cautions that the increase falls short of covering pressures due to inflation and enrolment growth.

“The operating increase announced in the 2023-24 budget does not cover the expenses that school divisions are facing,” said Jaimie Smith-Windsor, president of the SSBA. “This budget contributes to the existing instability and continuing erosion of the publicly funded education system and school boards are increasingly concerned about that.”

Boards have worked hard to keep up with the pressures of inflation and enrolment growth – but when the operational funding doesn’t cover the actual costs, the funding isn’t there to pay for any investment in achieving high-quality outcomes for students.

“We have been advocating for adequate and sustainable operational funding for quite some time and we have noticed that the ability of boards to deliver services to students has been eroded over the last several years,” Smith-Windsor said. “School boards are facing uncertainty and may have difficult decisions to make, once again.”

As school divisions receive their operational budget details through the education funding distribution model, they will have a better sense of the local budget response and circumstances, which might vary among regions, she noted.

School boards recognize this year’s funding for capital projects, though inflation has caused challenges and uncertainty related to those initiatives, as well. School boards also continue to advocate for strategic co-ordination with the Ministry of Health on mental health and wellness initiatives and welcome some ongoing dollars for that.

REGINA – The Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge is celebrating a new funding amount of $15,000 per school for 2023 – 10 schools will be selected to receive funding and a record total of $150,000 will be provided this year to encourage grassroots, local initiatives that promote student nutrition and healthier school environments.

“The Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge is an amazing partnership that has been in place for 17 years to support nutritional opportunities for students in our province,” said Jaimie Smith-Windsor, president of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association, which has administered the program in partnership with Mosaic since its inception. “We’re grateful to Mosaic for this longstanding and continued dedication to improving school nutrition environments.”

Since 2006, 93 schools have received funding to support improvements, which have included implementing or expanding nutrition programs, enhancing kitchen and garden facilities, increasing educational opportunities for students and families and supporting reconciliation and cultural projects.

“We are proud to increase our level of support for the Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge,” said Sarah Fedorchuk, Mosaic’s Vice President of Government & Public Affairs. “Over the past 17 years, the winning schools have used the funds to create healthier school environments, and we can’t wait to see what this year’s winners can achieve with $15,000.”

The 2023 Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge is now accepting applications and all schools across the province are encouraged to participate.

Download the application here:
https://saskschoolboards.ca/partner-organizations/mosaic-school-nutrition-challenge/

And check out a video about last year’s recipients’ here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22rwncFAclU

REGINA – The 27 member boards of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association chose Jaimie Smith-Windsor as the new President of the organization during the SSBA’s Annual General Meeting this week.

Smith-Windsor, who had previously served on the SSBA Executive as Central Constituency Representative and Vice President, was acclaimed. Shawn Davidson will continue serving on the Executive, as Vice-President.

Smith-Windsor is in her fourth term serving as a trustee on the Saskatchewan Rivers Board of Education and is a champion for local voice in publicly funded education.

“Boards play a critical role in shaping education through democratic, student-centered and non-partisan leadership,” she said, noting she values the unified advocacy of public, Catholic, Indigenous, francophone, northern, urban and rural boards of education in addressing important issues arising in Saskatchewan education.

“We need to continually amplify the work of locally elected and autonomous boards of education,” she added.

Smith-Windsor, who lives in the Resort Village of Elk Ridge with her partner and three teenagers, is committed to reconciliation and supporting Indigenous education and trusteeship. She aspires to high-performance and ethical governance and upholding core values of excellence, respect for diversity and achievement for all students.

“We need to advocate for the kind of investment in education that enables innovation,” Smith-Windsor said. “Our students’ needs are diverse. They deserve our very best efforts to secure the resources they need to thrive.”

A business owner with 19 years of experience in the construction industry, Smith-Windsor holds a graduate degree in Political Science, has held teaching and research positions and is a published scholar.

The SSBA Provincial Executive members are all school board trustees. Representatives for the SSBA’s seven constituencies are chosen by the constituency members. All 27 school boards in the province are eligible to vote for the SSBA President and Vice-President. A number of other Executive members were returned during the AGM.

Along with Smith-Windsor and Davidson, the 2022-23 Executive includes constituency representatives Jerome Niezgoda (Catholic), Christine Gradin (Central), Élizabeth Perreault (Conseil scolaire Fransaskois), Kimberly Greyeyes (Indigenous), Nathan Favel (Northern), Robert Bachmann (Southern) and Donna Banks (Urban Public).

The Executive advocates with a unified, province-wide voice on matters identified as important by the membership, promotes the important work of boards in improving outcomes for all students and builds relationships with key partners and stakeholders to ensure views of boards are represented.