This morning, Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen announced the creation of the Safe Schools fund to ensure safe and healthy learning environments in the fall.
Back in the spring, when schools closed, the province told the school divisions to keep the money they would save by having fewer costs.
Goertzen says that amount totals 48 million dollars.
He says that the province will be adding 52 million dollars to the fund to bring the Safe Schools funding to 100 million dollars.
This additional funding will be distributed on a per-student basis, with a portion of it to be held in reserve to be able to quickly respond to emerging challenges.
All school divisions will have access to the Safe Schools funding to provide masks and PPE to students, teachers, and other staff, enhance cleaning and sanitization, including more supplies and custodial staffing, increase bus transportation capacity, including additional bus drivers and routes, and ensure substitute teachers and educational staff are available to keep schools open and children learning.
Goertzen says 4.7 million masks have been delivered to school divisions from the province and there’ll be more to come throughout the school year.
Funding will also be available to enhance the sanitization of schools and buses and to ensure that school divisions have access to additional supports needed to keep schools clean and safe.
The province will continue to work with school divisions to assess the needs for this funding support and to identify challenges as they arise.
