With Saskatoon school ‘crumbling,’ NDP calls Sask. Party priorities ‘misguided’

For months, parents at Saskatoon’s École Monique Rousseau have been asking for help to fix a portion of the roof that’s had a hole in it since last spring.

A picture of the damage dated June 6 shows plastic construction sheeting covering holes in the ceiling in the middle of a school hallway, with a large rubber bin beneath it.

Saskatchewan NDP leader Carla Beck said concerned administrators, parents, and MLAs Marv Friesen and Gord Wyant toured the property last June, but the issue still hasn’t been remedied.

According to Beck, that’s just one of the major infrastructure issues the school is experiencing, including a flood last week.

Saskatoon’s École Monique Rousseau. (Lara Fominoff/650 CKOM)

“Two classrooms and the library are now deemed unusable,” Beck said, adding that overcrowding issues are now worse at the school as a result.

Beck and Matt Love, the NDP’s education critic, said parents submitted a petition to the provincial government with 200 signatures attached, calling for the roof to be fixed.

“Given this government’s apparent concern with parental involvement, you’d think that the government would have listened to these parents, but they didn’t,” Beck said.

The NDP leader criticized Premier Scott Moe’s decision to recall the legislature in order to debate his government’s controversial pronoun policy while the Saskatoon school didn’t have basic repairs completed.

“We have schools that are literally crumbling before our eyes, and parents are rightly concerned that this government is ignoring their voices,” she said.

“Scott Moe is more concerned about what children call themselves on the playground than having a safe school to attend every day,” Love alleged.

“What does that say about how out of touch this government is, and how out of touch their priorities are with real families in our province?”

Love said a school caretaker discovered the flooding last week when they came to get some personal belongings from the building.

“(They) found a waterfall flowing all the way from the roof down to the daycare,” he said.

Cathlia Ward, who has two children enrolled in the school’s daycare, joined the NDP critics at their news conference.

“You just look around and are so confused by this government. They want to listen to parents; we’re telling you what we need. We need the gaping hole in our roof fixed,” she said.

“My concern is that my children don’t have a school they can attend.”

Love said the school has been left to handle the issues on its own.

“The school has been left on their own to proceed with work, and I think that they’ve been trying to do that,” he said.

650 CKOM has reached out to the school and the school division to find out whether any repairs have begun, as scaffolding and a construction fence was erected outside a portion of the property on Tuesday morning.