Living Sky School Division is hopeful the new provincial budget offers more funding for education when it is released this spring. (file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)
Eye on education

Living Sky School Division hopes new provincial budget better meets its needs

Feb 24, 2020 | 4:12 PM

Living Sky School Division hopes the new provincial budget offers more for education when it is released next month.

“We’re asking to have a budget that is sufficient to meet the needs that we have,” Director of Education Brenda Vickers said. “We have needs around human resources. We have to be able to afford to staff our schools, to staff our office, and then we have needs around other areas.”

She said the division’s priorities include covering the costs for the business end of operation as well.

“We have to be able to afford to buy buses, and keep our IT infrastructure up to date,” Vickers said.

She noted the division is struggling with its current budget to cover all its costs.

“We talked a while ago with our MLAs that really we just want a budget on which we can run the organization and resource our plan,” Vickers said. “We talked a lot about our strategic plan and how it is aligned with the province.”

She added the division also discussed how it is trying to increase graduation rates, increase students’ literacy rates, and have students ready to learn when they complete kindergarten and start new academic challenges.

“That takes resources,” Vickers said. “We just want to have enough money to be able to meet the goals in our plan, to be able to resource those.”

“We’re hopeful,” she said. “We’ll see what happens, I guess, on budget day.”

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow

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