Teachers, students, parents rally in Regina for increase in public education funding

The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation estimates about 3,500 people gathered at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building on Saturday for a rally organized by the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, calling for more public education money amid rising inflation and school enrolment. 

Parents like Rosthern's Trina Miller, whose daughter required extensive support at school because of severe developmental delays and speech apraxia, say those services have eroded over the years due to continued underfunding for public education.

"Our teachers are tired, our parents are tired, we just need the government to get on-board with us and actually give the public education system predictable, reliable funding," Miller told host Stefani Langenegger in an interview on CBC's The Morning Edition on Friday, ahead of the rally.

"We don't have that right now. We really haven't for an extraordinary long time."

Miller said she saw the effects of underfunding first hand when her daughter was attending Rosthern Community School and the Prairie Spirit School Division had to cut a large chunk of its education assistants.

LISTEN | Saskatchewan parent and teacher concerned about state of public education: 

"She went from [having] a full-time EA to getting an EA about a third of the time," Miller said. "How is she going to get a meaningful education when two-thirds of her support is gone?

"We've seen her stagnate. We've seen her teachers become increasingly frustrated because they know what good education looks like."

Miller has moved her daughter from Rosthern Community School to Valley Action Abilities Inc., which is able to provide personalized programming for her needs.

During Saturday's rally at the legislature, Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation president Samantha Becotte, speaking over a cacophony of music and voices from attendees, said there has been "chronic underfunding in education" for decades.

"We're ready to send a message to the government to say that what they're putting into our students is not the investment we need to see," Becotte said. 

The Saskatchewan Party government needs to provide more funding for public education as inflation whittles down school budgets, she said.

Peggy Welter, a teacher at Cupar School northeast of Regina, said she's never seen educators so worn down in her 14 years of teaching. Some teachers she knows have classes of 40 or more kids, she said.

Welter, who is a Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation councillor, said in an interview earlier this week that's why she decided to help organize this weekend's Regina rally.