Theodore decision cuts funding for non-Catholic students

A government ruling has been made after 12 years of discussion regarding funding for non-Catholic students in separate school divisions.

A ruling has been made that, starting in June 2018, Catholic school divisions will no longer be receiving funding for their non-Catholic students.

“Given finite government resources for education,” said the Honourable D.H. Layh in their Queen’s Bench ruling, “funding given to separate schools beyond their mandate necessarily means funds not given to public schools.”

Good Spirit School Division brought the discussion forth questioning the constitutionally protection of funding for separate schools and checking whether or not funding non-Catholic students in a Catholic Division was unconstitutional under section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms.

This was in regard to St. Theodore Roman Catholic School, who formed their own division in 2003, now Christ the Teacher Catholic Separate School Division, to keep a K-8 school in Theodore, Sask. They took the matter to court defending their right to receive government funding for their non-Catholic students, which at that time made up 60 per cent of their school population according to Layh decision.

After the ruling comes into effect, any student that wants to attend a Catholic School will have to have a baptismal certificate from the Catholic Church to be funded through the Catholic School System.

Ken Loehndorf, current Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Catholic School Boards Association, says that the provincial government’s funding on a per student basis was not based on religion but now they are going to be making that distinction.

However, Layh noted in the ruling that this will not mean that non-Catholic students will not be allowed to attend Catholic Schools, “but submits that the historic constitutional protection of separate schools does not include the right for the school to receive government funding for non–Catholic students who attend the school.”

However in a press conference on April 21, Education Minister Don Morgan said that this ruling will mean the moving of thousands of Saskatchewan students from separate to public school systems so the province is going to be looking into the logistics of that.

Students who would want to stay within the Catholic school system would be baring their own cost, which would be not affordable for most families

Saskatchewan has invested a lot of capital into having and maintaining two school systems and for the last century it has worked, says Morgan.

“We want to look at all of the options that are available to us. We want to be able to make sure we are able to support all of the students in our province regardless of what school system they are in.”

Loehndorf testified that around 30 per cent of students were non-Catholics within the North Battleford Roman Catholic School Division when he was director at that location.

Loehndorf also testified that “sound statistical information is not readily available,” about province wide attendance of Catholic schools.

Spokesperson and past president for the Saskatchewan Catholic School Boards Association Tom Fortosky says they will be considering an appeal of the ruling.

“We have an obligation to stand up for the constitutional rights of separate school divisions, so we are giving serious consideration to an appeal.”

In that event, a final decision will be a long way down the road, says Fortosky.

Director of Education for both the Horizon School Division and the Englefeld Protestant Separate School Division, Kevin Garinger, says that it is a wait and see scenario on how this will impact Englefeld School.

The number of non-Catholic students attending Englefeld School is not known at this time so both how Englefeld School will be affected and how those students will fit within the public school system is not known at this time.

Humboldt Collegiate Institute is both a Catholic and a public school within Humboldt but since there is a joint operating agreement between Horizon and the Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Division, Garinger does not see any problems in HCI funding arising from the decision.