A trustee with Prairie South School Division hopes the provincial and federal governments will provide more funding to support school nutrition programs, especially since the division spends more than it receives.
Trustee Crystal Froese inquired during the April board meeting about how a new national school food program announced in the federal budget would affect the school division and how much money it might receive.
In response, during the May meeting, division administration provided a letter from the provincial government about its child nutrition program.
The letter from the Ministry of Education said that the 2024-25 provincial budget focused on classrooms, care and communities “with a record investment of $3.3 billion” in the education sector. In particular, community-based organizations that provide early years outreach, life skills development and literacy programming will receive an increase totalling $1.3 million.
“I am pleased to advise you that the child nutrition program will benefit from this increase. The program budget for 2024-25 will be $2.7 million, an increase of $77,000 over last year,” said Janet Mitchell, the ministry’s executive director.
“For successful applications, this increase will be included in the 2024-25 allocations and is subject to the passing of budget appropriate by the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.”
Mitchell added that the ministry will contact applicants after assessing their submissions.
Amanda Olson, superintendent of learning for Prairie South, told the board that the division applies annually for provincial funding for its nutrition programs and receives $33,000 to $35,000. Conversely, the division’s annual expenses supporting these initiatives are $89,000, which means it is spending $54,000 to $56,000 more than it takes in.
“This federal announcement was new and the province doesn’t really know what that means yet … ,” she continued, adding the ministry did not say whether it would provide more funding to Prairie South.
Froese pointed out that the division has highlighted the success of some schools’ nutrition programs, such as at King George School, which received $15,000 from The Mosaic Company last year.
“We know kids in our schools don’t do well if they don’t have the proper nutrition, especially breakfast coming to school in the morning,” she added. “And, we know that teachers often have granola bars and that in their desk drawers and they’re always trying to look after kids additionally in that manner too.”
The next PSSD board meeting is Wednesday, June 5.
