By Kellah Lavoie

School division raises coin for catholic education

Nov 13, 2010 | 10:46 AM

paNOW Staff

The Prince Albert Roman Catholic Separate School Division is working to raise money for other provinces.
Albert Provost, catholic school board trustee, said there are only three provinces in Canada – Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario – that receive full government funding for catholic education. The other seven provinces and the territories only receive up to half of the operating costs.
“If the public school gets $8,000 per student to operate, the catholic gets $4,000 and there’s no capital. They will not provide any capital for construction, that’s left up the parish or whoever is building the catholic school.”
He said to help out the rest of the country, the Canadian Catholic School Trustee Association set up a foundation, Toonies for Tuition, to “raise money from the three jurisdictions that are fully funded… to raise money for tuition in the other jurisdictions.”
Provost said some of the schools have room for more students, but parents can’t afford to send their children there.
He said the foundation has been around for a while, but it needed a bit of a boost.
Last year PARCSSD raised $1.30 per student. While Provost says it’s a good amount, they can do better.
The school division decided to add a little competition to mix. They bought two trophies – one goes to the province that raises the most money per student, the other goes to the school division that raises the most money.
He said they will announce the winners at the Canadian Catholic School Trustee Association convention in June. It takes place in Regina this year.
“We are going to go all out to win the trophy,” he said.
klavoie@panow.com