Four Sask. players named to Canada world junior hockey championship team
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Berkly Catton, Brayden Yager, Caden Price and Tanner Howe were all named.
Dozens of people filled the parking lot outside of Gord Wyant’s MLA office in Saskatoon Friday as part of province-wide demonstrations pleading the government to beef up its return to school plan.
The province’s education minister had the attention of the entire province this week after unveiling a provincial plan that wouldn’t require the use of masks, any changes to class size or staffing, or any additional funding when classes resume in less than a month.
Waving signs reading “Going back to school shouldn’t be like the Hunger Games” or “Normal is not a safe plan,” participants in Friday’s rally hope the province feels the pressure to change its plan.
“There’s a better plan to go to the grocery store than there is to go to a school,” Denara Swanson said at the conclusion of the rally that ran for just over an hour.
Kaitlin McElligott is a pre-kindergarten educational assistant who had trouble reading the return to school document when it was released on Tuesday.
“When I saw it, I cried,” McElligott, who is currently four months pregnant, said of her first impressions of the plan.
“It’s just not good enough. There’s nothing in there other than extra hand sanitizer. It’s crazy, it’s insane.”
The crowd gathered outside Education Minister Gord Wyant’s MLA office in Saskatoon on Aug. 7, 2020.
(Keenan Sorokan/650 CKOM)
Many people cheering on speakers were calling for masks to be mandatory in schools, for class size reduction to accommodate distancing and additional resources for staff to remain on the job.
Questions circled around effective contact tracing, the backward nature of the plan’s phases and the province’s repeated references to a “normal” school setting.
Colleen Boier is a pre-kindergarten teacher and McElligott’s mother. She instantly thought about the sacrifices she might have to make when she read the plan.
“I’m not going to be able to go see my grandchild when they are born because I’ve chosen to be a teacher,” she said. “I have to sacrifice my own personal life for the sake of my job.”
“I love my job, it’s been a passion, but how far do we have to go with that?”
Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili showed up to the rally late after working a few hours at a local clinic in the morning.
As a doctor, a parent and a politician, Meili is getting feedback on the plan from a variety of perspectives.
“All of the things we have identified as necessary after the first empty plan still weren’t fixed in the second empty plan,” Meili said before taking a verbal jab at the province.
“This is a government who’s managed to fail an open book test.”
Meili said too many people in the province are depending on the leadership of the province to give parents clear guidelines as individual school divisions across the province are providing their own system of rules, potentially leading to two students on the same block following an entirely separate set of rules at school.
“They’re failing the test and they’re passing the buck — passing it on to school divisions who don’t have public health departments who are under-resourced and expecting them to figure this all out on their own,” Meili said.