School division EAL cuts will impact newcomers, says Saskatoon Open Door Society

The executive director of the Saskatoon Open Door Society says he can't blame Saskatoon Public Schools for recently-announced reductions to English as an additional language (EAL) programming, but that the cuts were made in an area that already didn't have enough resources..

"I think it's going to have an impact, anytime that you reduce resources that were already not enough for providing supports to people who need support," Ali Abukar said.

The elimination of 15 EAL teacher positions is part of the cuts contained in the public division's budget, approved by trustees at a board meeting last week, for the 2019-20 school year.

The budget also eliminates 18 full-time teacher librarian positions, along with home economics and industrial arts instruction for Grade 8 students.

Advance warning

Abukar said the school division spoke with the Open Door Society before the cuts to the EAL teaching positions became public.

"It shows the strong partnership that we have with this school division," he said. "Not only Saskatoon Public, but also other school divisions. We work closely with them, supporting newcomers in our community."

Abukar said school division officials told him about their budget challenges. He said he accepts their rationale and their explanation, adding the society sometimes faces similar problems making do with the resources made available to it.

"I can't blame organizations and institutions that are similar to us," he said. "I urge our government to provide sufficient funding to our schools and to our organizations that work with people in need of support in our communities."

He said Saskatoon Public Schools officials assured his organization they would do their best to provide enough supports for newcomers and told Open Door there had previously been more support in Saskatoon Public than in some similar divisions.

"Now, they're going to bring those levels of supports comparable to the schools of the same size and the same student population," Abukar said.

"So we'll work together to cover the gaps as much as we can."

Frustration with provincial funding

At last week's board meeting, school division trustees — including one who fought back tears — expressed frustration over the need to make the cuts.

Ward 9 trustee Charmaine Bellamy said while students in the division will be affected by the cuts, trustees worked to keep student-teacher ratios in the classroom the same.

Other trustees said the amount of funding from the provincial government was not keeping pace with enrolment and complexities in the student body.

In the most recent budget, the provincial government increased the amount of school operating funding to the province's 27 school divisions by a combined $26.2 million. In the previous provincial budget, the government restored $30 million in funding for K-12 education after $50 million was cut in 2017.

Saskatoon Public Schools board chair Ray Morrison said that while funding from the province has increased about 3.1 per cent over the last five years, enrolment has jumped 10 per cent over that period.