School division clears the air after leaked internal memo

Turns out the memo the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) obtained was leaked by a teacher within the Chinook School Division.

Kyle McIntyre, the acting director for the Chinook School Division (CSD) said they have no clue who shared the internal staff memo.

The STF made waves on Tuesday telling parents in Sask. to be prepared for “another austerity budget.”

McIntyre said they have not received any news from the government that more cuts are coming to education.

However, he added changes are being made within their own internal budget.

“This was not a government directive,” he said. “This is a responsibility that boards of education are charged with. It’s a responsibility we take seriously and so we were trying to do what we needed to do to get our budget house in order.”

In a news release, the teachers union said the memo indicated a review will be held within the CSD to discuss school staffing levels.

McIntyre said because of last year’s provincial deficit the CSD was slapped with a $6.6 million dollar reduction. Since then, they’ve tried their best to keep their cuts away from the classroom; however, they’re still over budget meaning they need to make internal changes.

“We worked hard to try and balance our budget and we made a commitment that we weren’t going to reduce the amount of teachers in our classrooms,” McIntyre said. “We really looked long and hard at every single expenditure we had as a school division, we looked at all our programs, we looked at all our supports, we looked at staffing and so we decided we are going to try to get as close as we can to balancing our budget as possible so we made reductions of 33.75 centralized personal to better balance our budget.”

He said those reductions were made from senior administration, along with reducing the amount of coordinators. The division also took off a level of support for their schools who worked in the central office.

“Unfortunately we still have a little bit more to do to balance our budget,” he said.

McIntyre added that they are looking at their staffing levels along with the programs offered in an attempt to try and get closer to a balanced budget. He said the discussion has been started with front-line staff on what what reductions can be made.